


A Light to Guide Us Home

by nialleritdidnthappen



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist Zayn, Astronomer Niall, Engagement, F/M, Falling In Love, Graduate School AU, Light Angst, Love Triangles, Love at First Sight, M/M, Marriage, Musician Harry, Past Harry Styles/Taylor Swift, Past Nick Grimshaw/Harry Styles, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2018-12-31 03:38:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12123714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nialleritdidnthappen/pseuds/nialleritdidnthappen
Summary: “Harry?” Niall says, standing against the doorframe. “I think a binary starts out as one star,” he says, one hand still clutching the massive book, the other adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose, against bright blue orbs that are softened by sleepiness. “Like you said, from the beginning, they were…”“Meant to be together?”Niall’s face glows with a grin that betrays the exhaustion in his eyes. “It sounds so romantic when you say it like that."In which Harry is a musician who doesn't believe in soulmates or destiny or love at first sight, and Niall is an astronomer who might be changing his mind.





	1. Like Lightning

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've got a bit of a reputation for posting one-shots here and drabbles there and never really developing anything into a full-fledged work, but this one has been consistently occupying my mind for months now, and I'm already a few chapters into it, and I just... have that gut feeling that this is the one that I need to write. This is the one that won't leave me until it's finished. I'm really excited and nervous to share it, so please, if you read, tell me your thoughts! Whether by commenting or coming to talk to me on Tumblr, I welcome any and all feedback, as it is the best form of inspiration, I find. 
> 
> Cheers :)

It’s like getting struck by a bolt of lightning, seeing Niall for the first time.

Maybe it’s because Harry’s been cooped up in his apartment for almost two full days with little to no human contact, that the mere sight of any sentient being, Niall or otherwise, would have hit him so hard. A slap on the back of the head to remind him, _no, you’re not the only person in the world, you narcissist._

But he doubts it. Harry thinks it’s because Niall _is_ a bolt of lightning.

The building is quiet. As it should be, at half past eleven in the evening. It’s a quiet building to begin with, almost every apartment occupied by graduate students, like himself, who spend the majority of their time burrowed deep in their studies, occasionally making appearances as they travel to and from classes at the university just down the road.

After two semesters, Harry is sharply tuned in to the rhythm of his neighbors’ comings and goings, his ears anticipating the sounds of creaking floorboards and shuffling footsteps, closing doors and brief greetings and goodbyes just seconds before they occur. It’s the musician in him. Twenty-five years young, and he feels like he can tap his foot to the rhythm of the world, conduct the orchestra of his everyday life with his eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back. Because nothing is new anymore. Not even his music. _Especially_ not his music.

Harry’s hunched over the 88-weighted-key Yamaha in his sitting room, sheet music in front of him sporting more eraser smudges than actual notes, his fingers begging for the four-hour torture to cease. That torture, specifically, being jazz. He doesn’t even _like_ jazz. But it’s fulfilling a requirement this semester, and the professor is warm enough, if a little over-excitable in her love of what Harry considers the most self-indulgent genre in all of music.

He can feel the onset of a headache, so he adjusts his headphones to free up his right ear. More of a placebo than an actual fix. He chews at his bottom lip in concentration, and moves lanky, calloused fingers from a D minor nine to a G thirteen as his foot keeps time with the keyboard’s built-in metronome. The little ditty he’s composing will be pleasant enough for his professor, sure, but he’s fantasizing about how satisfying it would be to slam his head off this keyboard in four-four timing rather than pluck out a bland, boring, elevator melody that is taking him far longer to finish than it should.

It’s just the piano part he needs to write for this assignment. No woodwinds, no brass. And definitely no requirements to work with his arch nemesis percussion, so he is startled out of his bones when he hears what sounds like the quick _rat-tat-tat_ of a snare immediately followed by the boisterous _boom_ of bass drum from outside his apartment door. Neither he nor his assignment nor the familiar, endless drumming rhythm of Harry’s Perfectly Predictable Life had called for this, and he’s frozen on the bench for a moment, head snapped sideways toward the door, until he hears what sounds like the strangled groan of… some living thing.

He checks his watch. It’s almost midnight. There’s never noise this late. Something’s wrong.

Breaking for the door, the headphones that he forgot to remove yank him backward and he yelps in shock when he stumbles into the bench and stubs his toe _bad,_ doing a kind of pirouette to get untangled from the cord before tossing the headphones aside, gathering his remaining dignity and muttering in embarrassment to no one but himself, “Every _goddamn_ time…”

By the time he reaches the door he’s an absolute mess but he can’t care for long because, peering across the hall and down the stairs, someone he presumes to be a fellow tenant is being crushed into the corner of the landing by what looks like some kind of giant black cylinder, vertically mounted on metal legs, the entire apparatus nearly as tall his he is, at least a foot in diameter and clearly _really_ goddamn heavy.

Harry’s bolting down without hesitation, panting, “Jesus, are you alright?!” as he lifts the thing which weighs a _ton_ off of the young man who’d been attempting to carry it up the stairs, all by himself.

“Yeah! Yeah… m’alright!” Harry hears from behind the bulky black obelisk. “Hold on, I think we can lean it against the wall,” the voice pants, sounding dangerously out of breath, but Harry heeds his instruction nonetheless. “Just move with me… this way…”

Harry sees two pale hands curve around the cylinder from the other side, and he follows suit as it is guided to a spot on the landing, leveraged by a protrusion of old fashioned chair rail. “And… _there."_  

Harry just about catches his breath, only to have it knocked right out of him when the source of all the commotion finally peeks out from behind his gigantic piece of luggage.

He’s young, with eyes that smile despite being glossy with exhaustion behind thick glasses, with messy, sweat-spiked hair of an outrageous platinum blonde smothering the dark roots of what Harry assumes is his respectable, natural color. He’s still panting, fanning his plain navy t-shirt between pinched fingers to cool himself down, and he’s looking at Harry as if they’ve been best friends for years.

It’s a look so shockingly jovial for a stranger to share, a look that doesn’t belong here on this landing, Harry thinks, where nameless faces pass each other daily with minimal acknowledgement and that’s just the way things are. It’s the kind of circumstantial anomaly that happens in dreams, its strangeness only noticeable a millisecond before you wake up.

But this is real, and Harry is suddenly drowning in that reality when the boy extends a hand, grabbing Harry’s and shaking vigorously.

“Cheers, thanks mate,” he heaves, dropping Harry’s hand as quickly as he grabbed it and clapping Harry on the arm with a sweaty palm, “Don’t think I would’ve made it on me own… she’s a beauty though, isn’t she?”

He’s patting the giant cylinder fondly now, but Harry is cut off again before he can ask what the hell this thing even _is._

“ _Hell_ , sorry,” he’s scrunching up his face in a self-berating way that, for some reason, gets Harry laughing softly. “I didn’t even introduce… _Hi._ I’m Niall.”

Harry does a poor job of hiding his amused chuckles, but the boy doesn’t seem to mind. Just flushes a bit deeper and grins as Harry responds, “Harry,” and extends a hand, only to realize, _you already shook hands with him, idiot._ Niall clearly notices this too, but he just clasps Harry’s hand once again, even more enthusiastically than the last time, with a touch like static electricity.

“Good to meet you. Harry.”

He repeats the name pointedly. Commits it to memory. He seems to be committing Harry’s eyes to memory too — he’s barely broken contact at all.

“I hope I didn’t wake you. Really sorry if I did. Was supposed to get here hours ago, but… flight got delayed. Horrendous weather coming out of Ireland. _Great_ way to start the next three years of my life. Truly _fantastic_. Least the sky’s clear and weather’s lovely out this way. It was a welcome sight to land to, believe you me.”

He’s a rambler, Harry notes. A rambler with a musical Irish lilt that Harry thinks he could listen to for hours. _Good combination._

“But this is the last of it, I promise,” he reassures, and Harry is puzzled for a moment, then it dawns on him. The last of his luggage. He’s just moved in. And Harry’s feeling massively guilty, all of a sudden, cursing the headphones that kept him locked up in the miserable world of jazz when he could have been doing something _useful_ with his life…

“Jesus I’m sorry, I wish I’d heard… I was busy practicing and I didn’t hear— I mean…”

It’s the blonde boy’s turn to laugh now, shamelessly as Harry stammers, cheeks heating up.  

“It’s fine,” he reassures, dismissing the notion with an affectionate humor that Harry suddenly knows, though he hasn’t known him more than a few minutes, is one of his defining traits.

“Really, I needed the exercise. And I’m not done yet, anyway, so if you want help me haul her into the flat,” he gestures toward the monstrous thing propped against the wall, “I might be able to find it in my heart to forgive ye, neighbor.”

“Yeah, of course!” Harry knows he sounds too eager. But it’s an honest eager. He doesn’t know why, but it is. His new neighbor is grinning, then bending down to lift the thing when Harry stops him to ask, “What exactly is… _she_?”

Bright blue eyes go wide, and stare at him, incredulous.

“Shit, mate, can’t tell me you’ve never seen a Newtonian before?”

“Uh… a… Newtoni… _what_?” Harry wonders vaguely if he looks as stupid as he sounds right now. But with this man, Harry’s learning, self-consciousness never seems to last long.

“You’re telling me,” he says, hands out in front of him to punctuate every syllable, “that you’ve never looked at the night sky through the likes of her?”

Harry looks the thing up and down, sighing with an intrigued little smirk. _Telescope,_ he thinks, seeing now that the metal legs are extendable, and the scope itself tilts on a hinge, where he assumes you can prop it diagonally, angle it toward the stars. “No, I guess… I guess I can’t say that I have.”

His words are met with an offended scoff. “Well, I’ve got news for you, bud — if you haven’t seen the night sky through a Newtonian… then you _haven’t_ _seen_ the night sky.” 

Harry’s holding his hands up in surrender but he’s quickly getting orders barked at him, which he’s happy to follow. “Grab her from the top there, will ye? Help me take her up. I’m in 3C. We’re gonna get her out to the balcony, and then, we are gonna change that.”

“Oh we are, are we?”

“Hell yeah, we are,” he huffs as they hoist the thing off the ground. “I may not have a sofa or a table or any real food to speak of, but I’ve got two good patio chairs, a bag of ice, half a bottle of Jameson, and a twelve-inch Newtonian reflector, which means there is literally no better time to look at the stars.”

“Oh is _that_ what that means?” Harry grunts loud as he nearly topples backward over the top step, getting a grip on himself in the nick of time.

Infectious laughter fills the hall. “Yeah, that’s what that means.”

Harry shrugs as much as he can with the weight of the scope dragging his muscles toward the ground, and kicks open the door to 3C which, much to his satisfaction, is the flat directly on his neighboring side. He hadn’t even known the apartment was empty, if he’s being honest. Just thought he had a quiet church mouse of a neighbor. Laughter bubbles up inside him as he looks down the length of the telescope at the platinum mop straining to support the weight. Yeah, he thinks, he definitely won’t be making that mistake again. 

They stumble into the apartment, which is dimly lit by a single desk lamp sat atop one of about a hundred cardboard boxes in the living room. The trek through the cardboard labyrinth to the sliding glass door leading out to the balcony is a long and bumbling one, but a few stubbed toes later they’re setting the telescope down on the concrete patio, Harry’s eyes watering with joy as his muscles finally relax, and his new neighbor collapsing dramatically into one of the two aforementioned patio chairs. 

Harry pops the foot-wide lens cover off the eye of the telescope and begins using it to fan himself. It’s not hot out, but it’s not quite cool enough to bring him down from his unexpected workout.

“What was that you said before about Jameson?” he snickers, the idea of a whiskey on the rocks suddenly sounding like the best idea ever.

He gets a soft chuckle in response, through labored breathing. “Gimme a minute, and I’ll grab it.” Then, with warm, palpable gratitude, “And thanks for the extra hands, Harry.”

“No problem…”

Harry slows down his fanning, and he’s usually not terrible with names, but he finds himself retracing their conversation in his mind to remember.

“I… sorry,” he says, and the boy looks Harry’s way, blue eyes practically illuminating the entire patio, gaze like a moonbeam shining directly upon him. “Did you say your name was… Nile? Like… like the river?”

Eyes close, and shoulders shake with a fond kind of laughter before they open again and he responds, “Yeah. Sort of. Spelled different.” He drags a finger lazily through the air, “N-I-A-L-L. But, yeah. The same.”

“Different,” Harry comments, not meaning for it to sound so much like a contradiction. “I like it,” he adds.

Niall’s suddenly hoisting himself up from the patio chair and retreating into the apartment, but not before he snatches the lens cap out of Harry’s hand with a joking, “Gimme that. This is fragile equipment, this is.”

Harry snorts, and Niall’s holding the cap in his hand and waving it right before Harry’s nose to reinforce his point, but then he’s shrugging, and begins using it to fan himself just the same as he disappears inside.

Harry doesn’t believe in love at first sight. He never has. And he’s promised himself he never will. He has too many friends who claim to have experienced it, only for those relationships to crumble six months, a year, two years down the line, buttoned up with an “I never really loved them anyway” from the same boy who cried “love at first sight” at the start. Love at first sight is a fantasy, he tells himself. A juvenile, impossible fantasy that he most certainly has never, and will never, experience.

It’s too bad Harry doesn’t believe. If he did, it would be a lot easier to for him to rationalize the way his heart sank into his belly when, just a moment ago, he spotted the shining silver band gracing the ring finger on Niall’s left hand.  


	2. Forces of Attraction

Harry makes a deliberate point of not letting himself get excited about his compositions. Reason being, he’s found over the past few years that his excitement is almost always in vain. It’s a powerful rush of emotion to hum a melody or speak a lyric that feels like it’s been hiding inside you for ages and has finally been set free, and feels _incomplete_ in the most promising sense. Feels like the first hint of something that could be beautiful, something that could make all the tedious hours of coursework and criticism and self-loathing worth it.

But then, inevitably, the rug is pulled out from under his feet. The melody hits a dead end. The lyrics stop rolling off the tongue and become a jumble of thoughts and feelings that he can’t quite articulate. And he’s back at square one. Blank slate. Time to try again.

Harry’s spent many a night at his keyboard, abandoning his own work and letting his fingers glide instead into his vast repertoire of universally celebrated songs that he _wishes_ he had written, wondering how much try he has left in himself.

Unwittingly, that night on the stairwell, and later on the patio as they set up camp for an impromptu evening under the stars, Harry lets himself become excited about Niall.

It’s impossible not to. Niall is the epicenter of an energy field that pulls him in, infuses his veins with an exuberance — for whiskey, football, asteroid fields, pop music, stars, science, anything and every other topic they cover — that he has forgotten he could feel. But in the sporadic moments of quiet, when Niall pauses mid-thought to refocus the telescope, or take a long sip of his drink, Harry’s eyes wander back to Niall’s hand, and to that shining silver ring.

It comes up eventually, casual as anything, just another natural bend in the river of whiskey and conversation.

“So. Astronomy,” Harry restates, a few digressions after Niall reveals that he’s come to California to get his PhD. “You spend three years looking at stars, doing a bunch of maths and writing a gigantic book on comic explosions—”

“ _Cosmic_ explosions, ain’t nothin’ funny about defending a dissertation—”

“Yes, yes, _cosmic_ explosions, and then you, what, go down to NASA, learn to live on applesauce and Tang, slap on a suit and launch yourself into space?”

“God, no!” Niall winces, horrified, as he flips through his notebook of handwritten coordinates, then adjusts a dial here and there as he hovers over the eyepiece, hands moving about the mechanism with the same care and tenderness that Harry affords his piano keys, his guitar strings. A gentle touch that most people afford not to inanimate objects, but to other people. Harry tries not to let it hypnotise him. Comes back down to earth as Niall says, “I’ll be keepin’ these feet firmly on the ground, thank you very much.”

“Mmhm?”

“Everything I want to do…” he gives his shoulders a proud little wiggle, “...to boldly expand the boundaries of our knowledge of the universe, aid in the discovery of all the incredible things today’s science books just don’t show you… can be done here on Earth, I’m thrilled to report.”

He goes a bit wistful, for a moment, then seems to come down from the clouds when he catches Harry smiling at him.

“Any luck, and I’ll be the one preppin’ those lads and ladies who _do_ decide to take the trek to outer space,” he continues. “You need at least three years of some other relevant professional experience… military, aviation, the like… to even be considered, anyway. And besides, my fiancé made it perfectly clear he could never marry an astronaut. Miss me too much, he says.”

Niall gestures for Harry to come over and have a look. Harry sets his drink on the floor and obliges but, desperate not to let the topic change too quickly, he manages to slip in another question just as Niall scoots out of his way.

“Ah,” he muses, cocking a curious eyebrow, making way too much of an effort to keep the tone casual and lighthearted considering _you can’t possibly have any emotional investment in this person because you just met him_. “Now, was that before, or after the proposal?”

Niall laughs, bright and amused and melodic, a sound that inexplicably fills Harry with warmth and comfort, like hearing the opening notes of an old favorite song. “Before. And lucky for him, I’m way too claustrophobic.”

Before Harry can utter another word, Niall is gesturing for him to look into the eyepiece. “Now what you’re looking at here is _beta monocerotis,_ it’s a triple star system, absolutely _stunning_ , but it’s the craziest thing, yeah? ‘Cos with the naked eye you’d think it was just one bright star...”

The stars are beautiful, to be sure, but they’re scattered embers paling in comparison to the fire in Niall’s eyes, in his movements and voice as he emotes with every syllable he utters. It’s almost overwhelming, and Harry nearly wants to tell him to _hold up, slow down, let me breathe_ a few times, but he doesn’t, because he’s enjoying it all too much.

Harry doesn’t learn much else about the fiancé that night. But he learns quite a lot in the weeks that follow.

It’s not long before Niall makes the next door apartment completely his own — a spacious den of cool colors, framed shots of celestial bodies and black-and-white portraits of astronomers he quotes on a daily basis hung alongside posters of silly science puns, overflowing bookshelves, and far too many laptops, tablets and skywatching gadgets for a single person to own. A contrasting yet somehow complementary scene to Harry’s own apartment, all earthtones and framed family photos, sheet music everywhere it should be and plenty of places it shouldn’t, and, he’ll admit, way more guitars than any single human being needs.

By the end of Niall’s first week, Harry learns that the fiancé is an artist. From England, just like Harry. That same evening, over beers and friendly chatter as Harry helps Niall fill his newly constructed shelves with dozens of books (textbooks and novels alike, Harry notices), Harry learns that they’ve been together since Niall was an undergrad. “Six years strong,” Niall says, lifting a hefty classical mechanics text above his head triumphantly. “‘Course it took him five and a half of those years to decide to propose,” he adds, with an eyeroll and a knowing smirk, as though he expects Harry relates on some level.

And he does. He’s been there before, in a relationship where there’s a semblance of imbalance… one person more committed, more invested, more in love than the other. Yes, he’s definitely been there, but he sure as hell didn’t last five years waiting for the other party to catch up and is massively impressed that Niall did, though he doesn’t say that. Worries it’ll come off rude, insulting, which of course is not how he’d mean it.

Harry’s story hadn’t ended like Niall’s had though, so the relating stops there, but he does feel a genuine sense of justice knowing that the waiting paid off in Niall’s case. Not everyone can be that lucky, he thinks, but he’s glad to know that some people can, particularly someone as kind and warm as Niall.

By the end of Niall’s second week, Harry learns that the lad in question is 29, three years Niall’s senior. He has an art studio in LA where he sells a lot of his own paintings, does freelance work in graphic design and animation, and dabbles in ‘experimental art’ (Harry has no idea what that means). He also learns that the lad’s name is Zayn.

“With a Y,” Niall adds, using his left hand to spell the name in the air with invisible ink, just like he did with his own name the evening he and Harry first met.  

They’re just unpacking the last of Niall’s boxes, a mishmash of chachkies that are carefully placed one at a time on kitchen counter, end tables, coffee table, mantel. And there, finally, at the bottom of the box, are a series of framed photos of Niall and Zayn.

He’s dangerously handsome with dark skin and jet black hair, a chiseled jaw and eyes that definitely fit the narrative of how Niall was “hypnotized” by them as an unsuspecting 20-year-old who had been caught tongue-tied the day they met in an artsy, hipstery coffee shop on his university campus back in the UK. Harry picks up the photos and passes them to Niall, who smiles fondly at each, recounting the days they were taken to Harry as he places them with great care along his mantelpiece. Harry is entranced by the stories. Or rather, by the revelry with which Niall tells them, how he speaks with the same buoyancy and eagerness that he did while teaching Harry about celestial phenomena out on his back patio. Speaking not from his brain or heart alone, but from his entire being.

Harry finds himself settled comfortably into the corner of Niall’s plush sectional, laughing unashamedly and grinning ear to ear at Niall’s account of how awkward and bumbling he was during the courting phase. The odd, unsubstantiated disappointment he felt when he first learned of Niall’s mysterious other half seems to have melted away, replaced with joy and fondness and a bit of pride for everything Niall has achieved in love, everything he has managed to cultivate between himself and this man that he is so, clearly, in love with. Though he knows their friendship is in its infancy, Harry supposes this is what it it’s like to watch a best friend, someone you’ve cared for deeply for years and years, find real love.

Niall moves animatedly from photo to photo. A younger, slighter, rosy-cheeked Niall in a graduation robe and gold cords, blushing as he’s wrapped in a clean-shaven Zayn’s embrace. Then, Niall in his mid-twenties with his glasses and white-blonde hair, sitting side-by-side with a smiling, stubble-covered Zayn in front of a vibrant, whimsical mural on a canvas of cinderblock, surely one of Zayn’s masterful works of art. And finally, Niall and Zayn on the day of their engagement, Niall’s eyes scrunched shut in a giggly grin as Zayn, hugging him around the chest from behind, places a kiss to Niall’s temple.

Seeing Niall so _happy…_ it’s making Harry happy too. Which doesn’t make a lot of sense in this short frame of time, but it’s there nonetheless, a sunrise glowing between them, the room getting warmer and brighter and more beautiful with every shared story and reciprocated smile. Harry thinks, right as he guffaws in response to Niall’s imitation of Zayn’s Bradford accent... _We’re going to be great friends._

“Spent all night talkin’ about meself and Zayno,” Niall chirps, setting a glass of water on the coffee table in front of Harry, along with two opened beers, one for each of them, “haven’t even asked you if you got a mister or missus yourself.”

He settles onto the couch a little ways away, sips his beer, looks at Harry. Always looks so interested, so eager to know more, even before Harry has begun to answer him.

Harry chuckles a little. Niall’s been around long enough to know that Harry lives alone, and Harry’s never mentioned anyone. And Niall’s nothing if not observant. Harry knows he only asked to be polite. He grins before answering, knowing full-well by now that playful jokes won’t be lost on Niall. “Oh yeah, totally. Got a long time girlfriend myself. High school sweethearts and everything. Old flame that never died. Love of my life. Yep, she’s ace.”

A smirk and a barely concealed snort confirm to Harry that, as predicted, the joke definitely is not lost on Niall.

“Really!” he exclaims. “How come I haven’t seen the lovely lady about?”

“Oh, she lives in Canada. Waiting for me to finish my degree so I can move up to the Falls and we can pop out those triplets she’s been dreaming of.”

Niall nearly does a spit take and Harry swells with pride at the sight, then they’re a mess of laughter as Niall finally swallows down the mouthful of beer and wipes his frothy chin on the sleeve of his flannel.

“So, single then,” he lilts, as the laughter dies down.

“Very, very, extremely single,” Harry confirms. “Two relationships to speak of. One remains a good friend to this day, but he lives back in England, so…”

Niall nods empathetically. “Good friend, but at a distance,” he says.

“Exactly. The other… she was… well…”

Harry instantly regrets the hesitation, should have just said something simple like “it didn’t work out,” because now Niall is looking at him with compassionate eyes, opening himself up like he’s ready to listen, but Harry doesn’t like to talk about Taylor. He doesn’t want people to have to listen to that. Doesn’t want to remember it himself, let alone throw the whole messy story onto someone else’s shoulders and make them bear the burden too.

“She was complicated,” he says flatly, hating himself for the cliche, and for choosing the exact words that are best known to attract more curiosity, more questions.

But Niall doesn’t poke, doesn’t prod. Doesn’t scoff or roll his eyes at the cliche and doesn’t look offended by Harry’s shortness. He presses his lips together and drops his gaze, knocks a knuckle absentmindedly at his half-empty bottle, and hums, “Complicated is never fun,” before looking back up at Harry.

“No,” Harry agrees, taking a swig of his own. “Complicated ain’t any fun at all.”

“Good on you for staying friends with the first one, though,” Niall says softly, eyebrows raised like he’s genuinely impressed. “That’s not easy. Even when the split is… you know… amicable.”

Harry hums, smiles to himself. “Don’t give me too much credit,” he says. “It _was_ easy with Nick.”

“Tell me about Nick,” Niall invites. He sets his beer on the coffee table and brings his legs up onto the couch, hugging one knee to his chest and folding the other one onto the cushions. He looks endearingly young like that, Harry thinks.

Regaining his train of thought, Harry laughs suddenly, earning himself a raised eyebrow and a, “What’s so funny?”

Harry shakes his head because the answer is plain and simple: Nick is what’s so funny.

He tells Niall as much, and proceeds to dive right into the strange and charming journey of their relationship. From a sort of mentor-and-mentee dynamic when Harry was just 20 years old and stumbled into a part-time job at a local radio station to make a little money while he worked his way through undergrad. To “we only fuck when we’re drunk under the implied agreement that we’ll both ‘forget’ about the encounter come daylight.” To shameless friends with benefits. To full-on, completely legitimate couple who were wildly happy for seven months, then sank like the Titanic the second they slipped out of the honeymoon phase.

Niall’s eyes are wide and engaged from start to finish. He relates to the stories of young, innocent Harry being starstruck at first sight. He wolf whistles and continues nursing his beer when it gets into ‘friends with benefits’ territory, smiles soft and endeared through the recap of their seven-month high, then looks somber and sympathetic as the relationship nears its end.

Harry explains how Nick had worked hard to carve out a fantastic career for himself in England, and that Harry had known from the beginning of their relationship that he had no plans to leave. But all of Harry’s dreams of pursuing a career in music, ever since he was a teenager, somehow pointed first to California, then to who-knows-where because he just wanted to _travel._ He didn’t want to stay in the UK for the rest of his life, he wanted to see as much of the world as he possibly could. Harry _knew_ this going in, he explained. He knew it would be a point of contention somewhere along the line... but he chose to ignore it, because he was blinded by his infatuation. Thought if he just pretended the issue didn’t exist, soon enough, it would vanish. Or work itself out.

“Spoiler alert,” Harry smirks, “It sure as hell _didn’t_ work itself out.”

Niall’s eyes begin to wander. To a corner of the room, to his socked feet on the couch, to his nearly empty bottle. Harry gets the sense that Niall understands this part of it, somehow.

“The fact that Nick is the _good_ relationship must make you absolutely horrified to hear about the other one,” Harry says with a self-deprecating shake of the head.

Niall refocuses on Harry. “Not at all. Swear it. He sounds like a great guy. Like a good friend, especially after everything you two’ve been through.”

Harry nods and sets aside his beer. “He is.”

Blue eyes wander again, distracted in the short silence. When Niall speaks again, it’s soft. Almost a whisper, just audible above the hum of the refrigerator from Niall’s kitchen.

“Funny, the way people just… fall for each other. Like, without any say in the matter. Without any control, any choice. It just… happens.”

Niall looks deep in thought now, and Harry opens his mouth to respond, but doesn’t really know what to say. He almost feels like it would be rude to interrupt him as he contemplates, so he simply settles a little deeper into the couch, folds his arms over his midriff for warmth, rests his head against the back cushion. He can feel his limbs falling heavily into the pillows, and is suddenly aware of how late it must be getting. He’d forgotten about time, somewhere along in the conversation.

“Even when you know it shouldn’t,” Niall continues, after about a minute of quiet. “Even when you can see those... impending barriers. Like you did, with Nick,” he meets Harry’s eyes and nods in his direction. “Even _that_ isn’t enough to stop those forces of attraction, when they’re strong enough. It’s like a...”

He pauses, shakes his head.

“Like a what?” Harry asks, voice suddenly raspy from how tired he’s becoming, and a little muffled from his comfortable burrow in the corner of the sectional.

There’s another pause, Niall seemingly deciding whether or not he should share this, whatever it may be, with Harry.

“Like a binary.”

“What… what’s a ‘binary?’”

Niall’s moving then, hoisting himself up from the couch slowly, and Harry sees in the way he stretches and hears in the way he grunts quietly, then sighs to relax himself, that he’s getting sleepy too.

He skirts around the coffee table, padding quietly in thick grey socks over to one of the bookshelves, from which he draws an impossibly thick text whose tissue-paper pages are divvied into sections by semi-circular tabs. Niall holds the book open in his right hand, flicking through the pages with his left as he finds his way back to the couch. He takes a seat, this time, a little closer to Harry, so he can show him the page he’s settled on.

“A binary star,” he says, holding the book steadily between them, so that Harry can see.

Among the mass of barely readable text, Harry sees a few pictures. One is a detailed computer-generated illustration, another is a contoured diagram accompanied by arrows and numerical values, and the last is a true photograph labeled _‘Albireo, or Beta Cygni.’_ Every version, though, shows the same basic image: two glowing masses, moving in orbit around a common centerpoint.

“A binary star is what we call a star system that contains two stars in orbit around the same center of mass, or what we would call a ‘barycenter,’” Niall says, setting the book on the couch cushion between them and tracing his finger along the contoured diagram.

Harry leans closer to get a better look at the pictures, and to skim some of the text. It’s all Greek to him, though, so he looks to the young astronomer seated just an arm’s length away. “How… how does that happen?”

Niall brings his legs up to the couch to sit pretzel-style. “There are a few theories,” he says, somehow sounding both professional and comforting at the same time, like his voice could lull Harry to sleep. “One theory is that gravitational capture between two single stars…” he holds up two fists, far apart… “...pulls them together.” He moves his fists steadily closer together until they meet over his lap, where he laces his fingers together, joining his hands as one.

“Forces of attraction?” Harry tries, shyly, like a student offering a timid response when called on unexpectedly.

Niall drops his hands to his lap, smiles and nods, humming in the affirmative. It might be silly, but Harry feels his chest grow warm with pride.

“The other theory,” Niall continues, “which is actually far more likely than the first, is that binaries are created during star formation.”

Harry feels his face contort in confusion, to which Niall simply continues, breaking it down bit by bit, never condescending, always patient, purposeful, like sharing this information with Harry is something he feels privileged to do.

“The theory that binaries are actually created during star formation posits that the entire entity actually began as one, single protostar.” He rejoins his hands together in demonstration, interlocking his fingers.

“At some point during that formation process, when the young star is developing from a molecular cloud, fragmentation occurs.” Slowly, Niall’s hands separate from each other, and his outspread fingers ball up into separate fists once again.

“What would have effectively grown into one, individual star…” he begins rotating his two fists around each other, around an invisible common center… “has grown into two.”

Harry nods, and Niall drops his hands to his lap once again, resting them against his crisscrossed ankles, watching Harry intently.

“So,” Harry begins, voice just above a whisper, glancing again at the text, and the images there, “they… they were destined to be one from the start. They were meant to be together… all along.”

He thinks he hears a soft, surprised kind of chuckle from Niall, and when he looks over, sure enough, he’s biting his lip fondly.

“Yeah,” he says. “I guess you could look at it like that.”

There’s a silent battle going on in Harry’s mind, or maybe in his heart, as the image of Niall on the landing attempting to haul a massive telescope up the stairs all by himself flashes in his memory. The feelings of warmth and inexplicable familiarity that he felt that night are pulsing through him once again, right now, as he sits on this couch.

But he knows what he believes. And he knows what he doesn’t believe.

He knows.

But over the past couple of weeks, there’s been a heaviness inside of him, a force traveling through him and around him, permeating his thoughts and emotions, distracting him in the most mesmerizing way, a luminous little notion in the back of his brain.

 _But maybe you_ don’t _know._

“What do _you_ believe?”

The words leave Harry’s mouth before he can stop them, and he’s kicking himself suddenly because this was a conversation for _him,_ and him alone. Something for him to mull over in his head as long as he needed to, but not to bring up to others, let alone someone he’s only known two weeks... despite their oddly quick and seamless connection.

“What… what do _I_ believe?” Niall asks, looking a bit caught off guard, searching Harry’s eyes for clarity.

“Which theory, I mean. Which theory do you believe?” Harry covers rather lamely, but it’ll have to do. And it seems to work, as Niall nods silently and glances down at the text.

After a few seconds, he raises his head and hardly speaks a single word before he stops himself, and changes course.

“It’s getting late,” he says, carefully gathering up the textbook and hugging it to his chest. “I know you’ve got that early class on Mondays, I don’t wanna keep you up with all this…” he gestures to the book apologetically.

“No, no worries,” Harry says, playing it cool but grateful beyond belief that Niall seems to be granting him mercy, seems to understand that Harry’s on the verge of talking nonsense out of exhaustion. That’s all it is, Harry thinks. He’s just tired. His thoughts are getting away with him.

Harry helps Niall carry the bottles and glass into the kitchen, and is then walked to the door by Niall, who’s still holding the book protectively against his midriff, like a shield. He gets the door and Harry steps out into the hallway, whispering goodnight before making his way toward his own apartment.

He’s halfway there when Niall’s voice stops him. 

“Harry?”

Harry turns, and Niall’s standing against the doorframe.

“Mm?”

“I think a binary starts out as one star,” Niall says, one hand still clutching the massive book, the other adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose, against bright blue orbs that are softened by sleepiness. “Like you said, from the beginning, they were…”

“Meant to be together?”

Niall’s face glows with a grin that betrays the exhaustion in his eyes. “It sounds so romantic when you say it like that,” he says.

Harry can feel a blush creeping up his neck, so he takes a few steps backwards toward his door, gives a little eyeroll and a pointed, “Goodnight, Niall.”

“Goodnight, Harry,” Niall waves, retreating into his apartment and closing the door softly behind him.

Later, as he’s laying in bed in the dark, a warm breeze trickling through the screen of his open window, Harry can hear Niall talking to someone on the phone, out on his patio.

“Yeah, yeah it’s good,” he’s saying, his voice a different tone than it has been with Harry. Deeper, smoother, a different kind of comfortable. “Finished unpacking today, nice lad down the hall helped me out with the heavy stuff.”

Laughter, then, as he listens to the inaudible voice on the other end of the line.

“Miss you,” he says. His tone makes something tighten in Harry’s chest.

“I know that, ya dummy.”

Harry’s not sure what the other voice said to earn that title, but he finds himself grinning into his pillow.

“All right, I’ll see ya this weekend. Just give me a shout when you’ve landed… Love you too, Zayn. Get some sleep.”

He hears some rustling as Niall presumably scoots out of his patio chair, followed by the muffled click of the sliding glass door as he goes inside for the night.

Harry lets the hum of crickets and the soft breeze wash over him, a calmness settling into his bones as he lies still beneath the cool duvet. His eyes are closed before he can even try to fight it, and moments later, he’s fast asleep.

He dreams of two stars in orbit around each other, held together by a mysterious force of attraction. Luminous. Beautiful.


	3. Yin and Yang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You all are the most patient bunch. Thank you for sticking with me, and thank you for all the kind messages I've gotten in the interim!

Harry’s not sure how it’s possible that Niall has more friends than he does, given he’s only lived in this town a few weeks, but the hallway’s never been so busy as it is now that the blonde-haired astronomer has made the neighboring apartment his home. Then again, all it takes is one look at the boy to understand exactly why he attracts people so effortlessly. One look to remind Harry of the way Niall smiled at him the very first night they met. A complete stranger somehow managing to make Harry feel special and appreciated and interesting, with nothing more than a curve of the lips.

The comings and goings never seem to end, now that Niall has brought together a consistent circle of friends and, consistent with everything that Niall is, they form a fascinating array of backgrounds, interests, personality types.

And Harry hates to admit it, but he’s actually starting to enjoy meeting all of these new faces. Niall, in his true boisterous fashion, will signal to Harry that a weekend wind-down has begun with an aggressive pound on the thin walls separating their apartments, sometimes hollering, “Haz! Enough homework, pints and rom-coms in five!” that occasionally gets Harry to holler back, “You’re ruining my work ethic, you know that?!” and always puts a big, stupid grin on his face.

He’ll open the always-unlocked door to Niall’s apartment, and settle in with Liam or Louis, their better halves and even their children from time to time, at the end of a long day for a drink or a casual dinner and a movie none of them will watch. But they’ll talk, and talk, and laugh, and talk some more, and Niall will move the conversation from person to person in a way that’s so subtle and natural, it takes Harry days of doing this to realize how deliberate Niall is in his effort to hear from everyone in the room.

“Louis, what d’ya like most about the School of Drama? Will you move to New York when you graduate? Will El go too? What about Freddie?”

“Liam, Bear walking yet? When’s Cheryl coming over for a chat?”

“Harry, how’s the composition coming? When the fook do I get to hear it? You’ve been avoiding the subject, I know, I have a keen sense for these things.”

And Harry shouldn’t hate to admit that he likes this newfound camaraderie, this safe space where he can let off steam from the day and actually talk about the stresses of his studies, but he does, and it comes from a place of complete spite.

He loves how much his hermit-like state pisses people off. People, specifically, being Nick, Gemma, his mum and stepdad, who all made a not-so-subtle effort to encourage him not to close himself off to human contact after the demise of his relationship with Taylor.

The deep-rooted satisfaction he would feel at the end of a day when he hadn’t spoken to a single person just felt so strangely fulfilling, such a cathartic “fuck you” to who or what, he doesn’t really know, but he wears the badge of a loner so shamelessly, it’s only natural that the few people he remains close with start to worry about him. It’s not that he wants them to worry. Not that he craves the attention or anything like that. He’s simply proving a point. Proving that when he says he doesn’t need anyone to be happy, he means it.

He thinks maybe if he could get his family and Nick to believe it, he’ll believe it himself.

That, and the tear-stained music he’d poured out onto paper during those months immediately post-breakup was some of the most complex, most emotion-fueled, most sonically fluid and cohesive music he’d ever created. Sitting droopy-eyed and sleep-deprived at his keyboard amid a mound of handwritten sheets at three in the morning after having crafted a classical composition uninterrupted from start to finish was a feeling like no other, and in the haze of those early morning hours, he sometimes felt that the product was worth the pain.

So, he’s trying hard to be cavalier about the whole thing as Gemma eagerly gets in on his case, over the phone from over five thousand miles away. One of her many talents.

“You know, even though I’ve never met this Niall character, I like him already,” she lilts from the speakerphone on Harry’s bed as he flitters through his closet in search of a clean jumper for the evening. “He’s proven you wrong about yourself, so I suppose that makes him my hero, really...”

“He hasn’t proven anyone wrong, Gem,” Harry huffs, and he can hear a little scoff on the other line. “You didn’t really think I was going to be a recluse forever, did you?”

“Well, _you_ certainly seemed to think you would—”

“Oh I did not.” He pulls a soft burgundy jumper off the hanger and tosses it onto the bed by the phone, then begins digging through his drawers for a pair of jeans. God, he thinks, all this socialization has put him way behind on laundry. “Obviously I knew I’d grow out of that phase eventually, and it has nothing to do with Niall and everything to do with timing so now would be a great time to wipe that condescending smirk off your face.”

“You can’t even see me!”

“I know a condescending smirk when I hear one.”

“I mean, I never said you were wrong.”

He laughs at that. She does too. He misses her, a lot, and he says it wordlessly in the brief silence that follows.

“I know,” she says. “Miss you too.”

That rare pang of homesickness rises in his throat, but he swallows it down. School and this city and this apartment are exactly what he wants and needs right now, and he’s settled contentedly for the time-being, but every so often, there’s an ache of longing that reminds him that this isn’t quite home.

A sudden burst of familiar laughter floats through his bedroom walls, and on cue the ache begins to fade, and Harry’s mind returns to the task at hand: outfit for tonight. Which he’s suddenly unsure of, now that he’s laid it all out on the bed.

“What do you think of black jeans?”

Gemma doesn’t miss a beat. “On you or in general?”

“On me.”

“Depends on the top.”

“Burgundy, long sleeves.”

“Class.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Awesome.”

“Date tonight?”

The words catch Harry off guard and he fumbles in his response. He knows Gemma’s big-sister-senses are tingling.

“Not a date, just a thing. Like, with a bunch of people. Dinner thing. With people.”

“With Niall.” She’s not asking, and she’s heavily implying.

He really doesn’t want to talk about this. Because there is no ‘this’ to talk about. He puts on his jeans and his best casual tone. “It’s not like that with Niall, he’s just such a friendly bloke, and we’ve really clicked as mates, you know? Kindred spirit type thing. It’s not anything more than that.”

There’s a lot of care in her voice now, well-meaning hopefulness. “Maybe there could be, though? It’s been a while for you, love, and proving-you-wrong-about-yourself notwithstanding, he sounds really lovely.”

Harry’s pulled on his jumper now, plucked his phone off the bed and moved to the bathroom to mess with his shoulder-length curls. He hasn’t told Gemma about the fact that Niall is very much taken. He’s not sure exactly why, but settles that it’s because it’s unimportant. It’s a status quo that is not going to change, so it really has no impact on him, or on their relationship. They’d be friends one way or another.

“He is really lovely,” he says, pulling his hair into a knot, “but I just know when there’s, you know, potential, and when there’s not, and trust me, there’s not.”

“Harry, you’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m…” he laughs, even though nothing’s funny. He’s just not sure what else to do. Then, quietly, “I’m… really not lying, Gem.”

A pause, then, “What is it, Harry?”

He sighs, and leans heavily onto the counter with both hands, shoulders slumped. “He’s really, really lovely, Gem. I wish there were more people like him, you know? He’s one of those.” He hears Gemma hum, knowingly. “So it’s, it’s really not surprising that he’s married. Or, well, getting married. He’s engaged. And he’s so head-over-heels in love with this bloke, it’s actually kind of inspiring,” he laughs and he knows he’s rambling, but now that he’s started, he won’t be able to stop until he’s told her everything. She has that effect on him.

“But I think he’s the kind of person I’m looking for,” he says. It’s not overstepping, and it’s not controversial, and yet, he wouldn’t say it to anyone but Gemma. And maybe Nick. No one else. “Someone who’s just… really fucking enjoying their life, you know?”

She’s smiling sadly, he knows. “I’m sorry, dear.”

“S’alright.”

“Mmhm. ‘Meeting the man of my dreams, then meeting his beautiful wife,’” she sing-songs, and Harry laughs.

“I wouldn’t jump straight to ‘man of my dreams,’” he says, “just… kindred spirits, like I said. And as long as you’re quoting Alanis Morissette, I guess I’ll tell you that I’m actually gonna meet his fiancé tonight at this dinner thing. Zayn the Fiancé. His first visit to the place.”

“Why am I getting the sense that you’re nervous about this?”

Harry scoffs, rolls his eyes, “Because I’m going to spend the entire night looking at this guy and counting all of the amazing things about him that I lack and that make him attractive to people like Niall, then wallowing in the tragic truth that I will only ever attract heartbreakers with ulterior motives like She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and never generous, angelic, drama-free creatures like him—”

“Yes, ‘drama-free’ when you’re over here being the biggest drama queen in existence—”

“Am not!”

“Are too.” She’s in real-talk mode now, her tone firm and almost motherly. “You attracted Nick too, and he’s a wonderful human whose circumstances just didn’t mesh with yours. Why do you talk about Taylor as if you’ve dated ten of her? One bad breakup doesn’t mean you’re cursed to endure more of the same for the rest of your life, Harry.”

He scrubs a hand over his scrunched-up eyes. “I know, Gem. I know that. Deep down, I do. I just… it…” he wishes she was here, sitting next to him. “It was a really, really bad breakup.”

“And it’s in the past,” she says. Were she here by his side, she’d have plopped down on the mattress next to him, head nearly knocking against his own as they both stare at the light fixtures on the ceiling. “If Niall said yes to this Zayn fellow, then I’m sure he’s lovely as well. Make an effort to get to know him, yeah? But don’t go puttin’ him on a pedestal just cuz he happened to find love before you did. You’re wonderful, in every way that a man can be. I should know, I’ve had to deal with you your whole life and I haven’t given up on you yet.

“Now go over there and keep up this very un-hermit-like behavior, cuz it’s making me and mum and Robin very happy. And whether you admit it or not, I can tell it’s making you happy too.”

Harry smiles. “You’re not wrong.”

“Am I ever?”

“Goodbye, Gemma.”

“Bye, love. Hugs from everyone.”

“Hugs back.”

He spends another five minutes in front of the bathroom mirror, going back and forth between bun and no-bun as the sounds of arrivals and chatter and laughter build nextdoor. It’s not long before a steady thump thump thump on the wall followed by Louis’ unmistakable cackle and a muffled “Haven’t you guys ever heard of texting?” signals to him that the evening has officially started.

Bun, no bun, either way, he can’t get it to look quite right, but then again it shouldn’t matter, right? Right. No one to impress tonight. Bun it is.

The sights, sounds and smiles that greet him upon entering Niall’s apartment are so overwhelming at first, he completely forgets about any nerves he’d had about tonight. There are claps on the back from Louis and Liam, a kiss on the cheek from Eleanor and warm greetings from a few girls about his and Niall’s age whom he’s never met before — a perpetually smiling physicist named Hailee who knows Niall through their GTA program, and a bubbly blonde named Courtney, who immediately wins Harry over when she looks him straight in the eye, commits his name to memory by repeating it five times fast, then orders him, “Now go tell Niall to stop making friends, cuz I can’t remember half these people’s names!”

The whirlwind of conversation is all happening above a low hum of FM radio and a cloud of delicious aromas from the kitchen, and as Harry follows the scent of vinegar and herbs and the sound of a sizzling stovetop he finally sees Niall licking the spoon from the saucepan, grinding up seasonings, and laughing when he receives a kiss on the cheek and playful squeeze on the waist from the black-haired man sidling behind him.

Niall and Zayn are yin and yang if ever Harry saw it, opposites that somehow fit together like pieces of a puzzle, moving to and from, back and forth as two unique halves of one fascinating whole. Niall, with soft white hair and fair skin and a goofy grin, bouncing to the music as he teeters between pot and pan on the stove, blue eyes finding Zayn each time he turns to the counter to grab a handful of freshly chopped veggies to toss into the mix. Zayn, dark-skinned, sharp features nearly hidden amid thick scruff and a head of jet black hair, cool and confident from head-to-toe, his every movement smooth and deliberate as he follows Niall’s instructions, slicing the vegetables just so and passing them along to Niall each time he turns around.

From his smooth, self-assured body language alone, Harry expects to see an aloof expression from Zayn, maybe distant eyes or a smugness to his smile, if he was smiling at all. But when Zayn turns again to pass off a cup of minced onions to Niall, and Harry fully catches sight of his face, he finds the complete opposite.

Zayn’s deep brown eyes have a gentleness to them that betrays his edgy exterior, wrinkled at the edges from the fond curve of his lips that seems to grow as the conversation between Niall and him goes on. Harry can’t hear their words over the music and chatter, but he can see the way they speak, continuous and effortless as they move in orbit around each other, like they’re anticipating each other’s every move and every word, a knowledge and understanding of each other rooted deep in their very cores.

If Niall and Zayn were a musical composition, Harry thinks, they would be most interesting kind of fugue. Two separate melodies that, given the right place and the right time, blend together to create something unexpectedly beautiful.

“You must be Harry!”

Harry barely has time to fret over whether he was staring or spacing and how ridiculous that could have looked before Zayn is upon him and they’re shaking hands, Zayn with his free hand clapped warmly against Harry’s upper arm as he locks gazes, his eyes even darker up close, but never losing that same gentleness Harry first noticed.

“Great to meet you, mate. Niall’s been bangin’ on about how cool it is to have a musician for a neighbor, like his life’s got its own soundtrack now,” he says in a kind but gravelly voice, casting a glance back at Niall, who’s turning the stove down to a simmer and cleaning his hands, then making his way over to join them.

“Oh God,” Harry laughs, feeling a bit more at ease already, “that’s probably code language for ‘please, Zayn, get me the hell out of here,’ I bet I’m driving him nuts, playing day-in and day-out like I do—”

“Not a chance, I love every second of it,” Niall sidles into the conversation, looping an arm around Zayn’s waist, and they fall together seamlessly, Zayn draping a tattooed arm across Niall’s shoulders. “‘Specially when I’m out there with the telescope, hard at work,” he gestures to the patio doors, “and it feels like I’m in a proper documentary.”

There’s a collective laugh, and before Harry has time to digest whether he’s feeling totally fine or totally weird, Niall’s rattling off a laundry list of tasks that Harry can help them with in the kitchen because “it takes Zayno 15 minutes to mince a single onion” and “I can’t watch all four of these burners by myself!”

The way Niall makes just enough room in the conversation for Harry to join has set him almost entirely at ease by the time he’s given his own cutting board and a lineup of vegetables to tackle, and Zayn is kind and warm, and soon enough, there’s a rhythm. A steady, comfortable rhythm, one Harry can match his mincing to with ease, that guides him when to interrupt, interject, laugh, chop, pour a glass of wine, and ultimately take his seat at the table and glide through dinner, dessert, and just enough wine to double the laughter and magnify the absurdity of every subsequent topic of conversation by meal’s end.

“So Niall. Level with us.”

It’s Louis, pointing his empty beer bottle across the table at Niall in earnest, and Niall’s stifling alcohol-induced giggles behind flushed cheeks before he can even continue.

“When’s the mass evacuation to Mars happening, and how should I go about preparing myself for the post-apocalyptic death arena in which NASA will determine those worthy of a seat on the first shuttle?”

There’s a collective groan from the table and a burst of cackles from Niall, eyes scrunched behind his glasses as he leans comfortably into the arm Zayn is draping over the back of his chair.

Harry’s feeling the buzz of the alcohol now too, dissolving his guard and enabling him to chime in with the rest of the table in their groans and skeptical rebuttals as Louis tries his very best to put comically illogical arguments past the bona fide space expert at the head of the table.

With every theory Niall squashes Louis becomes more and more vehement in his conspiratorial thinking, Harry’s a fit of giggles, and Niall appears to be enjoying the hell out of this. The sly little smirk and the way he’s got his arms crossed over his chest, leaned back and relaxed, makes Harry think that Niall’s one “dark” quality might be that he secretly loves showing the world just how smart he is.

“You do realize that even if we can get humans to Mars by 2030, it’s not going to be civilians, Lou—”

“Oh ye of little faith—”

“Oh ye of little common sense more like! The surface of Mars is too cold to support human life and if you’re going to survive in a manmade habitat — which are still in prototypes, by the fucking way — you’re going to need some physical training that’s a bit more testing than _stage combat_ —”

Louis’ hand clutches at his heart and he’s nudging an amused Liam for support when yells “Low blow!”

“Aw give it a rest, lad,” Zayn chuckles at Louis, cool as ever by Niall’s side. He nods his head toward Niall, “He’s smart, but don’t believe everything comes out ‘is mouth. Not like he’s on NASA’s payroll.”

Niall snaps to look at Zayn, fake-shocked, “‘Scuse me, sir, are you questioning my knowledge on the subject of sending totally untrained, unprepared, unqualified _civilians_ to live on the surface of Mars?”

“Not questioning, babes, just saying he don’t have to take your word for it, do he? You’re not exactly working for NASA—”

“Not yet,” Niall grins.

“So I’m just he don’t necessarily have to take your word as gospel—”

Louis interjects, still good-natured and joking but Harry’s seeing a bit of heat rise in Niall’s neck. “Well would ya look at that, the fiancé says I don’t need to listen to you Nialler—”

“No ‘course not, why should ya? It’s not like I have _two_ degrees in astrophysics and—”

Zayn’s got a hand on his shoulder now, and Niall’s managing to keep his voice level, but there’s an undeniable irritation set in his jaw, and Harry’s suddenly glad that Courtney and El are engrossed in their own separate side conversation and that Liam’s just gotten up to take a call from Cheryl, and that the low hum of the radio is still flowing about the room.

“Babes all we’re saying is, ya don’t work for NASA, that’s it, that’s all I’m saying.” It’s lighthearted. Too much so.

“But I will one day,” Niall says, firm, looking Zayn straight in the eye.

“Okay, well, we don’t know that you will—”

Niall hoists himself from his lounge against Zayn’s arm, “But we don’t know that I _won’t_ —”

Sipping at his wine has been Harry’s one distraction and he’s just beginning to scramble for a change of topic when Hailee exclaims triumphantly that she “found it!” It, Harry realizes, meaning some article or whatnot on her phone that she excitedly shares with Louis, something about the true timeline of the impending human mission to Mars, which gives Harry an opportunity to sigh in relief and Niall an opportunity to push his chair back from the table and gather up as many plates as he can, retreating to the kitchen.

Harry’s sixth sense warns him not to look up from his glass, but like an idiot he does anyway, and he locks eyes with Zayn. He offers an understanding kind of smile on impulse.

Zayn returns the look with a blasé shrug of the shoulders. He’s saying to Harry with his eyes, _He gets like that. No big deal._

A while later, with the table cleared and the bottles corked, Liam’s headed home and Courtney’s pulling on her jacket and bidding everyone goodbye with a promise to text El and a kiss on the cheek for Niall. The remaining group’s gathered on the couches, Louis and Hailee jabbering on about this and that, Eleanor texting away as she curls sleepily into Louis’ side.

Harry’s part of the conversation, or at least, he’s keeping up, offering vague noises of agreement here and there.

He knows it’s none of his business, and he knows he shouldn’t be watching, but he glances curiously over to the patio doors where Niall has escaped to light a few votives outside, leaving the sliding glass door open in his wake to fill the apartment with a warm breeze. Zayn follows him, and Harry doesn’t look away.

There’s no tension. At least, there doesn’t appear to be. It’s more like resignation lingering between their bodies. Like they’re talking about something they’ve talked about before. They’ve been here before, and they’re both tired.

Niall leans against the railing, looking out onto the street. Zayn teeters closer to him as they speak, feeling things out like, until he’s leaning by Niall’s side, tilting his head down to catch Niall’s gaze from where it’s hiding in shadow cast by the candlelight.

Their foreheads touch, then. In the light of the dancing flames Harry can hardly tell where Niall begins and Zayn ends, and suddenly their entire collective being is exhaling with a gust of wind that blows right through the patio doors, making Harry shiver in his armchair, even though it’s warm.

They’re wrapped in each other’s arms, moonlit white and candlelit bronze. Then, Niall lets go, takes Zayn’s stubbled jaw in his hands and kisses him on the cheek, and Zayn makes his way inside.

There are handshakes all around after he tells the room he’s off to bed, citing a tiring day of travel and some plans with Niall early tomorrow morning. He takes his time, remembers every name. He shakes Harry’s hand firm and offers that gentle, genuine smile when he says, “Sure I’ll see you a bit more before the weekend’s up, neighbor.”

Harry returns the pleasantry, of course, but as Zayn retreats to Niall’s bedroom, Harry rewinds Zayn’s words in his brain, and he’s surprised. He figured Zayn would be staying a little longer than one weekend.

He’s had a lot of wine, and he’s feeling it, head wobbling with indecision just as his legs wobble the tiniest bit beneath his weight. In true loner form, Harry sees an excellent opportunity to sidle out of the party unnoticed and avoid goodbyes or the fifteen to twenty-minute conversations those usually turn into. El’s practically asleep and Louis and Hailee are carrying on but in lighter tones, and Niall’s returned to his slump over the patio railing. A few months ago, he’d have been gone in the blink of an eye.

And yet, his feet have other plans. They’re carrying him straight through the patio doors and out to the balcony.

He doesn’t look at Niall, at first. Just picks a spot along the quiet, lamplit streets beneath them — the rickety old bench by the bus stop he uses every day to get to school — and stares, like Niall, letting the breeze wash over him and sober him up a bit. Niall must be aware of Harry’s presence, but he hasn’t flinched.

“So what’s your second degree?” Harry asks, suddenly. He’s not thinking now. Just talking. Because he’s decided somewhere in the last hour that he doesn’t like to see Niall upset, and his wine-laden brain has decided that it would be a good idea to do everything he can to make Niall not so.

Niall falters, like he wasn’t expecting Harry to speak at all. “What’s my… what?”

“Your second degree,” Harry repeats. He turns to look at Niall then, who’s still looking out into the night, brow furrowed in confusion. “You said you had two degrees: astrophysics and…”

He draws out the ‘and,’ gesticulating into the night, inviting Niall to complete the sentence.

Niall nods, catching his meaning, but still doesn’t make eye contact. “Doesn’t matter,” he shrugs.

It’s not curt, just resigned, again, just like the energy off his body when Zayn had gone outside to speak with him.

“Maybe it matters, maybe it doesn’t,” Harry says, “but… well, I’m curious. Humor me.”

Niall huffs a little at that, shaking his head as he looks upward, into to the clear night sky. It’s not quite a laugh, or a smile, but it’s something.

“Aerospace engineering,” he says.

Harry’s about to quip something noncommittal in response before the words actually hit him, and his head snaps to face Niall, and he’s spouting, “Are you… are you _fucking_ kidding me?”

That’s what finally does it, Harry’s words snapping Niall out of the quiet, suppressive funk that is _so_ not him, and breathing life and laughter and humor back into his eyes.

“No, Harry,” he sighs, unable to suppress a smile, “No, I’m not 'fucking kidding' you—”

“You build fucking spaceships—”

“Well no, not technically—”

“But you are, in fact, trained in the oh-so-subtle art of fucking _spaceship construction_ —”

“You’re cursin’ worse than me now, you know that?”

“Niall, what’s your IQ?”

Niall’s guffaw probably wakes half their neighbors but it’s worth it, to help him find his way back from a place he shouldn’t have had to go.

“Harry,” he giggles, “if you’re tryin’ ta make me feel better, consider your task complete.”

Harry’s relentless, though, his own grin getting bigger every time Niall scrubs a hand over his face, which is growing pinker by the minute, “What’s your IQ, Niall? It’s over 150, isn’t it. 150? No? 160? Oh holy shit, it’s literally 160. You literally have the same IQ as Stephen Hawking—”

“Ya know, IQ really isn’t the greatest measure of a person’s overall intelligence anyway—”

“Fucking hell, it’s higher than 160.”

“Are ya done?!”

“Friendships are built on honesty, Niall!”

Niall’s finally turned to face Harry, hilarity and incredulity and embarrassment filling him up and spilling over his edges in flushed cheeks and tears of mirth. He removes his glasses to wipe at his eyes, and slides them back into place as he sighs defeatedly, “It’s a number higher than one hundred and sixty, and that’s all I’m tellin’ you. And you can spend the rest of your life tryin’ ta guess.”

Harry leans against the railing, shoulders back and chest high, smirking victoriously. “Fair enough.”

“You didn’t have to do that, Harry,” he says, slipping his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and kicking lightly at the concrete floor. “I shouldn’t get so defensive about that kind of thing, I know he’s just joking, but… you just…” he sighs, and finds Harry’s eyes, “You just work so hard for some things, and you want them so badly and they’re so important to you, and then other people don’t really… get it. They don’t really understand why, or even try to understand why, and then one little joke suddenly feels like it’s… not really a joke at all, and… shit, sorry.”

“For what?”

“Rambling.”

“No, it’s… it’s okay, Niall. Really. I get it. Like… like behind every joke, there’s maybe just a bit of truth?”

Niall nods. “Yeah, exactly.”

He laughs, then, in spite of himself. “Sometimes I think Zayn would be happiest if I settled down to teach Physics 101 in an LA high school.”

“But that’s not you.”

“Oh, fuck no,” Niall shakes his head without hesitation, elbows back on the railing, “I’m going to… I don’t know… go to Japan and see the Earth Observation Center, visit the best and biggest observatories in the world, teach at the doctorate level, and, and…” he gestures to Harry with a laugh, “build a fucking spaceship! Finish my PhD first, obviously, but after that…”

“Sky’s the limit?”

Niall catches his eye again, hums in agreement. “Mmhm.”

“Well, tell it to Zayn like you just told it to me, and he won’t be able to say no,” Harry says, nudging Niall at the elbow. Niall grins, in that fond way he did the first time he mentioned Zayn to Harry, and the night he put their engagement pictures up on the mantelpiece.


	4. Makers of Music, Dreamers of Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry pauses. Saying it will make it real, and God, he really, really doesn’t want it to be real. He knows nothing will come of it, he knows he can’t do anything about it, but he has to tell someone. Telling someone is the only way he can work through it, make it go away before it becomes a real problem. He takes a deep breath.
> 
> “I’m in love with a man who’s otherwise… engaged.”
> 
> Nick quirks an eyebrow and looks at him funny. A moment passes before he says, “Otherwise engaged with wha—”
> 
> Then, realization. A sinking feeling in Harry’s stomach, and a look of much appreciated sympathy from Nick.
> 
> “Oh, Harry…”

Niall all but vanishes on the weekends when Zayn visits, which Harry expects, and is completely in support of considering how hard it must be for two people who are engaged to live so far apart. It’s nice to know Niall’s getting quality time with Zayn. Harry sees firsthand how hard Niall works during the weeks when Zayn’s not around, and Harry and Niall commiserate over many a nightcap about how their respective classes are kicking their asses. He deserves a break now and again. Even if it means that Harry inevitably slinks back into his hermit lifestyle on those weekends, with Niall too occupied enjoying time with his fiancé to drag Harry out of his apartment.

It’s a good thing though, Harry thinks. It forces him to get some writing done — the musical kind as well as the words-kind, as he’s got a slew of compositions and research papers in equal measure stacking up on his to-do list now that they’re over midway through the semester.

He starts his Saturday morning at sunrise, which is his favorite time of day, in a cheesy kind of way. There’s something about that first warm beam of yellow light peaking through his curtains that makes him feel like he can forget all the shortcomings of yesterday, and start anew today. Do better today. That, and nothing soothes his soul like plucking out a soft, improvised, major key melody laced with the longing lilt of suspended chords on his acoustic hummingbird as the sky melts from yellow and pink to clear blue.

By lunch time, he’s put the finishing touches on one piano composition that’s been hanging over his head like a stormcloud for weeks, due promptly at nine o’clock on Monday morning for jazz. He literally punches the air in triumph when he slaps the manila folder shut on that one, diving into his next assignment with a stupid grin on his face and newfound gusto.

It’s a duet, this one. For guitar and piano. “You don’t go straight from writing a solo piano composition to composing for an orchestra,” his professor said earlier in the week. Which should be a given, and it is, really. Harry knows it, and his classmates know it, and yet, hearing it from someone as accomplished as his professor, who has literally won Grammys for writing on tracks he grew up listening to on the radio (he definitely didn’t almost pass out in the middle of class when he learned this), is comforting. Because there’s a small part of Harry that feels like if he wasn’t composing symphonies by his eleventh birthday, he’ll never amount to anything as a musician. Which is, of course, ridiculous.

So you start with two instruments. Then trios, then quartets, and work your way up.

Acoustic guitar and grand piano, he decided. Two instruments he knows backwards and forwards. Should be easy enough.

Except for the fact that every time he thinks he knows what this thing should sound like, his brain short-circuits and he changes his mind, again and again and again. Slow and somber. A peppy pop melody. A latin-inspired chord progression with fancy trills. A motown groove. A twangy country tune. Harry Styles, graduate student extraordinaire, banging his head against his kitchen table amid a flurry of eraser-smudged staff paper.

But not today. Today, he’s feeling indestructible. No more jazz weighing him down. He’s got his guitar in his lap, pencil in hand, fresh paper on the table. Nothing can stop him now.

Except maybe a knock on the door.

Then voices. At least two. A hushed argument in the hallway.

 _God, please, let it be someone else’s door_ , Harry thinks, leaning over his paper to begin working.

His hand jerks unceremoniously at the three louder knocks that follow, unmistakably his door. He sighs, drops his pencil against the once clean staff paper now ravaged by a startled scribble slicing the page in half, sets his guitar aside and makes his way to open it.

It’s a Zayn weekend, which in Harry’s mind means Niall should be meandering about the city, showing the sites to his husband-to-be, at the museums, on a bike ride, anywhere but in the apartment building.

So when Harry yanks open the door, he’s more than a little surprised to see Niall, and even more surprised that Zayn seems to be the one who knocked. It’s not hard to surmise. Zayn is standing squarely in the doorway with Niall hovering timidly a few feet behind his shoulder, looking flustered and embarrassed and like he’d rather be anywhere but here. Harry’s not sure what’s going on, and despite his attempt at a smile he’s gripped by an instant uneasiness in his stomach.

“See babes, told ye he’d be home,” Zayn says, serenely cheerful as ever while Niall chews his nails and makes a noise like he’s about to protest, then casts an apologetic look at Harry as Zayn talks right over him.

“Hiya Harry, sorry to be pesterin’ you, but we’re in a bit of a bind and I’m thinkin’ you’re just the man to help out.”

“For God’s sake Zayn, I don’t wanna bug him with this—”

Harry’s getting more confused with each interruption, casting glances back and forth between the two of them when Zayn continues...

“Nialler didn’t realize I had an early flight today—”

“It’s not that I didn’t realize, it’s that you didn’t tell me—”

“And he made plans for us to go to this thing—”

“It’s not just a thing, pet, I told you about this weeks ago—”

“Point being,” Zayn says firmly, stepping aside a bit so that he can place a hand on Niall’s shoulder, “I can’t go, and you know how sorry I am about that, love,” he says off to the side, meeting Niall’s gaze. Niall sighs, nods while he bites down on his lip. “But,” he continues, turning back to Harry, “Nialler really doesn’t want to go alone, since there’s two tickets and he’s apparently had this planned for a while, so I figured if you didn’t already have plans today, you could be his plus one.”

Zayn’s looking at him like this is the most normal, every-day, no-big-deal request a guy could possibly make of his fiancé’s neighbor. Niall’s looking upset, embarrassed, and deeply apologetic all at once. And Harry’s standing in the doorway, frozen, suddenly wondering if maybe he hasn’t even woken up yet, but is still curled up in bed, fast asleep, having a weird-ass dream — one that he and Niall will laugh about over beers on the balcony later this week.

But no. He’s very much awake, and this is very much happening.

It’s awkward. And weird. Due to reasons and feelings that Harry successfully squashed down weeks ago after one simple cathartic phone call to his sister that marked the end of said feelings, which Harry will no longer acknowledge because there is nothing to acknowledge.

And yet, here he stands, with no idea how to appropriately react. “I… I mean…. I really wouldn’t want to presume...”

Niall turns on Zayn immediately, “Told ya that you’d be putting him on the spot, he doesn’t want to—”

“No!” Harry holds out his hands, and Niall pauses, watches him hesitantly, “It’s not that I don’t want to,” Harry says, and immediately wonders what the hell he is letting himself say right now, “it’s just I don’t wanna like, presume that… you know… Niall, that you’d necessarily want do this thing with, you know… _me_ …” Harry falters and feels himself flushing, and Niall suddenly cracks a bit of a smile, and Zayn rolls his eyes before interjecting.

“Of course he would, Harry. You’re like his best friend out here.”

There’s a moment, then, where Harry meets Niall’s eyes, and everything seems to fall still around them. Time stops so Harry can pause and take in Zayn’s words, and feel the weight of a warm, tingly emotion that hits him squarely in the chest when he sees the way Niall looks at the ground, then looks back up at him with a small smile. Like he’s been caught. But he’s okay with it.

Harry fell into friendship with Niall as surely and easily as the sun rises every morning. He didn’t have to think about it, and he didn’t have to work at it. It just was. _I_ _s_. And maybe the ease of it all is the reason it took Zayn spelling it out for him to realize how much he means to Niall, how grateful Niall is to have formed a real bond with someone as he takes on the brave new world, so far away from home. Suddenly, Harry feels like an idiot for not telling Niall sooner that he feels the exact same way.

“Sooo… is that a yes?”

Harry breaks his gaze with Niall and looks back to Zayn, who’s rubbing his hands together hopefully, thick black eyebrows raised as he awaits Harry’s response.

“I… sure,” Harry says, breathes, laughing a bit as he lets his hands rise and then fall in surrender, “Happy to, guys… if that’s what you want and, and if it’d be a help.”

Zayn’s smiling that handsome, crooked smile and clapping Harry on the arm, then sliding an arm around Niall’s shoulders and pulling him into a little half-hug and knocking their foreheads together as he huffs kindly, “There now, babes, see? You won’t have to go alone.”

“I’m still mad,” Niall mutters, a pout tugging at his lips. He takes an innocent little kick at Zayn’s shin, and Zayn chuckles it off and kisses his forehead before murmuring, “I’ll make it up to you. Promise.”

And with that, he gives Niall one more squeeze around the shoulders before nodding gratefully at Harry and skidding back into Niall’s apartment, where Harry hears the unmistakable sounds of shoes being pulled on and a travel bag being zipped up.

“I’ll, uh,” Harry nods back into his apartment, letting Niall know he’ll be inside, that he’ll give them a moment. Niall mouths his thanks with a smile.

Harry can hear them saying goodbyes, can see them through the door he left open, hugging tight on the landing before Zayn pulls back, kisses Niall soft on the lips, and makes his way down the stairs, out of the building, back to LA. It’s not Harry's business, he thinks, to have opinions about how two people — neither of whom are him — should manage a relationship. It’s not his business so he shouldn’t have an opinion. But of course, he does. Before he can stand there and let himself get too pensive, though, he sees Niall heading towards the door and begins hastily shuffling music back into his folders, sliding his hummingbird back into the big leather case on the floor. As if Niall would be able to read his thoughts if he wasn’t feigning busy… it’s silly. But then again, he thinks, amused by the thought, there seems to be very little that Niall can’t do, so maybe it’s not that silly after all.

When it’s just the two of them, the atmosphere shifts to that same comfortable place they’ve been so many times before, but he knows Niall’s coming off a letdown. So he slides the guitar aside, leans against the table, casts kind eyes toward his friend, and waits for a cue.

Niall sighs, heavy and dramatic as he makes his way across the room, but unsurprisingly his eyes are already looking a bit brighter when he finally addresses Harry. He never stays down for long, Harry knows by now.

“Cheers, Haz,” he says, tapping Harry’s shoe affectionately with his own, where their feet were already nearly touching on the hardwood floors. “Really appreciate it. And you can still back out if ya want, s’not the end of the world if I have to go by myself…”

“About that,” Harry interjects with a bit of a confused grin, brow furrowing because now that he’s thinking about it… “ _where_ exactly are we going?”

If Niall’s eyes were distant stars before, they’re blazing suns now, shining bright and beautiful right along with the excited smile spreading from ear to ear as he laughs, “Oh geez, I haven’t even told you, have I?! Harry, it’s… if you’re really doing this with me, and God love ya if you are… I gotta warn you, it’s going to be absolutely amazing… ”

Harry barely has a moment to grab his bag, wallet and keys before Niall is commanding his full attention, jabbering on and on about how they’re going to see a sold-out talk by an astronaut idol of his who just got back from a mission and wrote a book and is doing groundbreaking research about some sort of cosmic something-or-other that Niall cares a lot about for reasons Harry doesn’t fully understand… but the enthusiasm is making him laugh louder and grin wider than staying home and working on his compositions ever could. Deadlines be damned.

And that is how Harry Styles winds up going on a date with a man who’s engaged to be married.

~

“Harry, I can’t.”

Niall is bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet, fingers fiddling nervously together as he casts glances over his shoulder to where _the_ Shane Kimbrough stands, graciously signing books, shaking hands, and greeting the flocks of students and faculty vying to meet him in the mass exodus from the auditorium.

Harry had never even heard this guy’s name before he and Niall sat down in the auditorium ninety minutes earlier to dimming lights, a shiny plexiglass podium, and a giant star-speckled screen that gave way to an introductory video that got even Harry — who knows little to nothing about space travel or physics or exploding stars — really freaking excited. But he’s evidently world-famous, revered as one of the great pioneers of modern-day space travel and discovery, and from the way Niall was leaning over to whisper footnotes, context, or little bits of background into Harry’s ear throughout the entire symposium, it’s a safe bet that Niall’s been following Kimbrough’s career since he was about five years old.

So, where Niall found the guts to throw this world-renowned aerospace engineer a total curveball during the Q&A session, Harry has no fucking clue. But he found it hilarious and thought-provoking and kind of awesome, and the rest of the auditorium clearly did too… as did Kimbrough himself, Harry’s pretty damn sure, judging from the chuckle, the gleam in his eye, and his somewhat teasing response to Niall before the runners took the microphone to another audience member for the next question. It’s an uphill battle trying to convince Niall of this, but Harry's not going down without a fight.

“Niall, you _can_ , and you _will_ ,” Harry commands, hands on Niall’s shoulders as he looks straight into the poor kid’s frightened blue eyes. Harry’s trying so hard to keep a straight face, but he knows his incredulous grin is winning over. “If you don’t go over there and talk to him right now, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life.”

“Shit, Harry, he probably hates my guts, I didn’t mean to stump him like that, it was a genuine question but I feel like he probably just thinks I’m some smartass kid who was trying to trip him up—”

Niall’s trying to shift them towards the doors again but Harry holds him firmly in place, a mere fifteen or twenty feet from where his childhood hero stands, looking nothing but cheerful and engaged with everyone he greets. He is not going to let Niall pass this opportunity by. “He does _not_ think that, Niall, please, he was laughing when he said you’d really caught him. He was impressed! It was a great question! I mean, technically I don’t _know_ it was a great question considering I didn’t understand ninety percent of that whole presentation...”

Niall groans loudly and makes another go for the doors amidst the masses of people around them but Harry swipes an arm around his shoulders and steers him right back in Kimbrough’s direction, making Niall squirm, whimper and quickly turn to hide his face.

“... but what was nonsense to me was clearly massively impressive to him, Ni! Now get over there and talk to him! Genius to genius, what’ve you got to lose?”

Before the next protest can escape Niall’s quivering lips, Harry spins him around and gives him what’s probably far too aggressive of a push in the direction of the mob, and Niall stumbles a bit but catches himself, glances back at Harry desperately. But Harry just gives him a double point in the direction of the smiling astronaut, and Niall hesitantly begins to make his way through the throng.

Harry props himself up on his toes to see what’s happening, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect. Just as Kimbrough is bidding a member of the faculty farewell, Niall has sidled right into his line of sight, and Harry grins when he sees the way the astronaut instantly recognizes him, smiles, makes what he’s sure is another teasing comment and reaches for a handshake. Niall’s looking flushed and a little starstruck, but Harry can see relief wash over him as they dive into a conversation together.

Suddenly, Harry gets an idea.

He slips carefully through the masses of people and over to the book tables, fishes into his messenger bag for a few bills, and purchases a glossy hardcover of Kimbrough’s book from the friendly cashier. Fate is on his side when he sidles back to where the all the action is taking place. Niall is shaking Shane’s hand once again as they bid each other goodbye, and then he retreats into the crowd — probably to look for Harry — only to be swept into conversation by Hailee and an older academic who Harry guesses is one of their professors. Harry snatches the opportunity, elbowing through the throng still clamoring to meet the astronaut and interjecting, “Pardon me, Mr. Kimbrough!”

~

When they reconvene outside on the steps, Niall is looking positively giddy, and Harry just smirks, _told you so_ written all over his face. He gets a playful shove on the shoulder from Niall, who laughs, “Yeah, yeah, have fun gloatin’, Haz.” Harry shoves him right back as they begin making their way down the sidewalk.

The nearby streets are just beginning to bustle with nightlife, storefronts and restaurants lighting up a few at a time as the sun begins to set. They’ve got no plans, and after pausing to enjoy one too many delicious aromas as they wander through the strip, they finally decide to settle into a little Vietnamese place that Harry’s ordered from before, but never had a sit-down dinner in. It’s warm and inviting, lit up by fairy lights over the bar and orange and yellow lanterns over shiny dark surfaces, and they get seated at a small table by a window. Niall cranes to look outside while they wait for their server, telling Harry offhandedly that sunset is favorite time of day. “Because it’s like a big sigh of relief," he muses. "You’ve dunnit, ya know? One more day to chalk off the calendar. That, and you get to watch the stars come out.”

They order waters and beers and a dumpling appetizer to share while they await bowls of noodle soup, and the conversation moves completely on its own momentum, Harry feeling like he doesn’t have to try at all. With every shift in topic he learns something new, and learns quite a few things that he and Niall have in common that he never knew before. Niall also has parents who are divorced, but he’s close with them both. Just one older sibling to speak of, though Niall has a brother where Harry’s got Gemma. Both Greg and Gemma, it seems, had objections to their moving to America, but when it came down to the wire were ultimately supportive. Niall’s even a musician himself, Harry finds, which he cannot believe Niall hadn’t mentioned sooner. He’d mentioned his musical tastes, sure, which are uncannily similar to Harry’s, but failed to mention that he is actually a perfectly proficient guitarist in his own right. To which Harry responds by flicking a shower of green onions across the table and groaning, “Christ, Niall, is there anything you _can’t_ do?”

Niall dodges the onions and laughs loud enough to earn them looks from a few neighboring tables, but Harry couldn’t care less, because making Niall laugh is proving to be one of his new favorite hobbies.

“For all our sakes, Niall," Harry huffs, feigning exasperation, "name one thing that you _cannot_ do.”

Niall sets down his chopsticks and grabs his beer, leaning back to take a sip as he murmurs, “Erm…”

“Bastard,” Harry smirks and sends another onion flying across the table to hit Niall right on the arm.

Niall’s doubling over again, assuring Harry, “I’m jokin’! I’m jokin’. Can’t dance to save my life, cannot draw, can’t paint, can’t do anything even relatively artistic, so I leave all that to Zayno. And apparently I can’t approach people I admire without becoming a clammy fuckin’ mess, that is unless I’ve got you in my corner.” He clinks his bottle against Harry’s. “So cheers on that one, mate.”

“Oh! Speaking of which…”

Harry can feel Niall’s curious gaze on him as he reaches under his chair for his bag, and there’s a swooping feeling in his stomach as pulls out the gift he so stealthily acquired while Niall was otherwise occupied with his classmates. He’s not sure why the sudden butterflies, but even as he looks up to meet Niall’s gaze, and to extend the book carefully across the table, he feels his cheeks heat up just the tiniest bit.

“When you finished talking to him, I… I snuck in there and… yeah,” he huffs. Niall’s smile fades, his lips going slack while his eyes look from Harry, to the book, and back to Harry.

“Open it,” Harry says, and Niall obliges.

Harry watches Niall intently as he reads the inscription that Shane included over his signature. Something fond and goofy about how when Niall gives his first symposium as a PhD, Shane can’t wait to be there in the audience to stump _him_. Niall’s eyes flitter over the words and the signature on the cover page, and then his shoulders are shaking with quiet laughter, and he’s snapping the book shut before looking back at Harry.

“Haz… thank you. I’m…” he looks down at the book again, shakes his head and bites down on the smile that he cannot hide, then looks up at Harry once more, right into his eyes. “Thank you so much.”

~

It’s not super late when they finally get home, only coming up on nine o’clock, but they’re both getting sleepy fast. Harry had spent the better part of dinner whining to Niall about how indecisive he’s been on his duet assignment, so Niall positively demanded that Harry at least let him listen to what he has so far when they get back. And because Harry had to manhandle Niall into meeting Shane, well, he guessed he owed Niall one back.

He unlocks the door to his apartment and lets Niall meander in behind him, and they toss their bags and shoes in the foyer before Harry moves to his kitchen table to gather up the materials he’d abandoned earlier in the day, when Zayn came knocking.

“I really don’t have a lot to share, I’m afraid,” Harry reiterates, scooping up his guitar case and papers and plopping down at his keyboard. Niall follows, falling comfortably into the armchair just to Harry’s right. Harry unclips the guitar case and pulls out his hummingbird, then rummages through his folders for two nixed attempts at this duet: slow and somber, and the pop-ish melody. They’re his two best so far, even if they’re only a few bars long with more eraser smudges than actual notes.

“S’alright,” Niall says kindly, pulling his legs up onto the cushion to sit pretzel-style, “Gotta start somewhere, yeah? And I reckon they’re not nearly as bad as you keep makin’ ‘em out to be.”

Harry huffs out a doubtful, “No promises,” which earns him a chuckle.

“Alright, so… I’ve got this first idea for like a, erm, sort of a pop tune, kind of bright, like…”

He strums out a fluid C suspended, then continues with the four-chord melody, chucking the strings to punctuate the downbeats. Once he gets into a bit of a groove, he glances up to watch Niall, bouncing his head in time.

Harry mutes the strings, then stretches his arms over the guitar in his lap to play the lead melody on the keyboard. “And the piano part that would go over that would be something like…”

His fingers glide through the tune, most of it improvisation based on the chord progression he’s already worked out. He glances over at Niall as his fingers slow and the melody fades. Niall's leaning back on the cushions, nodding in time with the music with a bit of a smile.

Harry likewise demonstrates the slow, somber melody on both instruments, and Niall immediately says he likes the pop melody better, but not to throw away the sheets for the slow one.

“Not saying maths and music are exactly the same,” he explains, “but I’ve learned the hard way never to throw away scratch work. Always end up regrettin’ it. There’s undoubtedly something in there you can use. If not today, tomorrow.”

Harry nods, promises not to toss the music, and chews his lip in anticipation to hear Niall’s thoughts. He doesn’t do this for friends. Let them listen to the stuff he’s working on, sample it for them, hear what people think. He supposes he should, but it’s hard enough to bare your work for classmates and professors day in and day out. Home is the one place he feels like he can at least experiment in private, without the threat of a critique looming over his head after every writing session. It’s a daunting prospect, but something about Niall’s thoughtful gaze and soft eyes reassures Harry. Even makes him feel like this is something he could do time and time again — knock on Niall’s door just to see if he has a second to listen to something Harry’s been working on, and give him an honest opinion.

“So. On a scale of sucks to ten, how am I doing?”

Niall chuckles, but gets serious again quickly. “You’ve got something here,” he says, leaning over and gently lifting the first sheet from the music stand to have a closer look. “I really think you have, Harry. But it’s… it’s buried in all this.” He gestured to the notes, then chews his thumbnail as icy blue eyes scan each clef, as if he’ll be able to pinpoint the missing element that will turn Harry’s music into a masterpiece.

“You think?”

Niall hands the paper back to him. “Yeah,” he nods, “I really do. I think there’s something in both, you know? I feel like there’s gotta be a big build in the song, whatever it becomes. With suspensions like that, gotta be some big shift or change at the end. Maybe a modulation or… I dunno,” he muses, a bit wistful. “But you’re a true 'maker of music,' Harry,” he smiles, and Harry might blush, just a little. “You’ve got a real gift, you know.”

~

Niall leaves a little while after that, and it’s when Harry closes the door behind him that he suddenly starts to feel a kind of internalized claustrophobia gripping him. He goes about tucking away his music and encasing his guitar, trying to ignore the feeling, but there’s a heat rising on his neck and in a few minutes, it’s starting to overwhelm him.

He hurries to the kitchen to fill a glass with water and gulps the whole thing down in mere seconds. “Breathe, you idiot,” he hisses, then huffs out as much air as he can, trying to calm the racing of his heart. He knows what this is, can’t deny it anymore. He shouldn’t feel like this. He _can’t_ feel like this. He feels weak for letting himself, and beyond that, deceitful and dirty for not setting up firmer boundaries from the moment he saw the ring on Niall’s finger. The kitchen feels like it’s closing in around him now, and he rushes to the patio door like he’ll run out of air if he stays inside one more second.

He sucks in a breath of cool night air, and it helps, but not enough to clear all the panic from his heart. When a few more deep breaths don’t do the trick, he pulls out his phone, opens up Skype. Gemma’s offline, as he knew she would be at five in the morning her time, but there’s someone else who’s definitely awake that Harry calls without a moment’s hesitation.

“Young Harold,” comes a teasing but fond kind of drawl along with a smirk on his iPhone screen that Harry knows all too well, “to what do I owe the early-morning pleasure?”

“Hey Nick,” Harry sighs, trying his best to angle his phone so that the porch light illuminates his face, though he’s still nearly half in darkness where he leans against railing. Doesn’t matter so much though, as it’s just Nick, and Harry can see that he’s about midway through his morning routine, toweling his hair dry with his phone propped against the bathroom mirror. “I know you’re getting ready for work and stuff but… you got a minute?”

“For you love? I’ve got two,” he winks, and Harry snickers. “Nah, I’m good for an hour or so. How’s things across the pond?”

“Well… I… erm…”

Nick pauses mid-comb, puts his brush on the sink and picks up the phone to get a better look at him. “Harry? What’s wrong?”

Harry pauses. Saying it will make it real, and God, he really, really doesn’t want it to be real. He knows nothing will come of it, he knows he can’t do anything about it, but he has to tell someone. Telling someone is the only way he can work through it, make it go away before it becomes a real problem. He takes a deep breath.

“I’m in love with a man who’s otherwise… engaged.”

Nick quirks an eyebrow and looks at him funny. A moment passes before he says, “Otherwise engaged with wha—”

Then, realization. A sinking feeling in Harry’s stomach, and a look of much appreciated sympathy from Nick.

“Oh, Harry…” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and for always being lovely about the long-ass time it takes me to update! I have a somewhat demanding profession outside the lovely world of fic writing, so your patience and love means the world. Comments give me life, and I never leave one unanswered :) Also if you wanna talk about the story or just talk to me, visit me on Tumblr, same username! I love new people!


	5. Under the Lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niall, 
> 
> Christmas last year was difficult, in a way. My family was worried about me. I wasn’t doing great emotionally, didn’t keep close friends, wasn’t taking care of myself the best I could. But ever since I met you... things have gotten so much better. I truly can’t tell you just how much happier I am now that I’ve found a friend in you. So I guess since the year is coming to an end, I wanted to say thank you for filling me with the infectious optimism and passion for life that you seem to radiate every second of every day. I’m so grateful for your friendship, Niall. And I really hope I can keep saying that for a long time to come.
> 
> All the very best to you and Zayn and the family,
> 
> Harry

Campus is buzzing as undergrads and grad students alike get ready for finals. The air is cool and breezy and there’s a constant threat of rain looming overhead as the semester comes to a close. The corridors of nearly every building are decked out with red, green, and silver, and it’s certainly a sight for Harry’s sore eyes. Though it can’t quite compare to the snowy wonderland he’d be relishing in were he back in Holmes Chapel.

 _Soon,_ he keeps reminding himself.

He’s got four papers to finish, three compositions left to finesse, two more gifts to wrap, and one plane ticket taped to his refrigerator that he’s convinced is the only thing keeping him going.

The thing that _usually_ keeps him going hasn’t been around much... but that’s completely Harry’s own doing, so he really shouldn’t complain.

He hasn’t spoken to Niall in nearly three weeks.

Well, they’ve spoken, but not properly. Not like they used to. Not since Harry told Nick the ugly truth about his infatuation — a conversation in which Nick was as diplomatic as possible, to be sure, but also just as direct as Harry needed him to be.

“If you think it’s going to be a problem,” Nick had said, after Harry spilled the whole story and spiraled into a self-deprecating tirade about how all he could feel was guilty for wanting someone who had already chosen their better half, “then you need to set boundaries, love. He’s clearly been a good friend to you, yeah? So you don’t just wanna go and cut him out. But draw a line for yourself. Only you can know where that is.”

Apparently, for Harry, this means not answering Niall’s texts until days laters. Watching through the window to make sure Niall’s left the building before going out into the hall, so they don’t bump into each other on the stairs. And when they inevitably do cross paths, waving a brief hello and then pulling out his cell to pretend like he’s taking a call before he can escape into his apartment.

Harry, for his part, is miserable like this. He _misses_ Niall.

But he also has plenty to get done before he heads home for the holiday. Plenty to keep him busy. Even if he and Niall were still chummy as ever, he doesn’t have any time for messing about, and he doubts Niall does either. Niall’s getting his doctorate, for Christ’s sake. If anything, Harry is doing them both a favor by backing off a bit. They don’t exactly have time to waste, what with their studies as demanding as they are.

This is what Harry tells himself, anyway, as he bounds up the stairs to his apartment after an exhausting day of study groups and tests and his dreaded piano jury. Which, as it turned out, went massively better than he thought it would, so that was one bright spot in this week from hell.

His brain is in a million places all at once as he somehow manages to balance his books in one arm while unlocking his door. There’s truly nothing that can match the sweet relief he feels when he shuts the door behind him and drops all his schoolwork to the floor. (Even if he knows he’ll have to pick it up and start working again in just a little bit.)

Without even bothering to turn any lights on, he makes his way to the kitchen and fills himself a glass of water. (He’s not drinking again until after his vocal jury, because if he was scared for the piano jury, he is _petrified_ for vocal.) He’s just about gulped down the entire thing right there in the dark of his kitchen when he hears a knock on the door.

He pauses a moment. It’s dark, after all. Maybe they’ll think no one’s home.

But somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows exactly who it is and doubts he’ll go away that easy.

“Harry?” comes a voice from outside. Niall’s voice.

Harry thinks about Nick, and drawing that line, and _boundaries, boundaries, boundaries,_ but… he can’t lie to himself and say he doesn’t miss the sound of that voice.

“Damnit,” he mutters. He sets the glass down on the counter, scrubs his fingers over his tired eyes, and heads for the door.

He’s not sure what he’s expecting. A confrontation, maybe. Anger, irritation, a demand to know why the hell he’s been avoiding Niall not-so-subtly for three straight weeks. But that’s not what greets him at all.

“Hey, stranger,” Niall says, gently. There’s something like concern behind his glasses today, and Harry must be even weaker than he thought he was, because it disarms him completely.

“Hey,” Harry smiles. Even if it’s a weak, tired one that requires a good bit of effort after the day he’s had, he can’t _not_ smile in front of this man. He doesn’t know whether to love that, or hate it. “Hi. Niall.”

“Am I, erm… interrupting anything?”

“Just, ah… just got back. Bunch of exams today,” he tosses out there, trying to keep things light, casual. “Just about to hit the books again, really,” he adds a humorless laugh, and it’s suddenly really starting to sink in just how tired he is.

“Jesus, you’re gonna work yourself to death, there, slugger,” Niall says. Concern in his voice, now.

The first few words of a curt goodbye are just escaping from Harry’s lips when Niall overpowers him…

“Well, I’d better get go—”

“Harry, is everything all right?”

Harry had almost let himself forget just how warm and safe of a presence Niall is. How his eyes never leave Harry’s when it’s just the two of them. How he listens to every word Harry says and waits patiently for Harry to get out the words he _hasn’t_ said, but wants to. How the way he crosses his arms over his midriff protectively makes Harry wonder what it would be like to be wrapped in his embrace.

“It’s just…” Niall flounders a little, probably because Harry’s been too transfixed by Niall’s eyes and arms and his goddamn knack for active listening that he’s let too many seconds of silence tick by. “You’ve not been quite yourself, for a couple weeks now, and… and it just got me wondering if something’s happened? Everything going all right in classes? Everyone okay at home? Just… I’ve been a bit worried, is all.”

And that’s really, really hard to hear. Because here Harry is, thinking he’s doing everyone a favor by backing off, and he’s gone and made Niall worried about him. He’s been avoiding Niall like the plague and now Niall’s worried his mum’s fallen ill or he’s failing out of his program or his earth is crumbling around him in some other horrible way. As if Niall hasn’t gotten enough on his plate while he gets his man-on-the-moon degree and holds fast to a long-distance relationship and…

“Harry, for goodness sake, will ya say somethin?”

“Oh, Jesus, sorry, I’m… Yeah,” he breathes, finally exhaling after what feels like minutes of pure tension in his chest, “Niall, I’m… Everything’s fine. I swear,” he adds quickly, when Niall quirks his eyebrow suspiciously. “Just been really busy, and…” Busy’s not going to do it. He’s got to think of something else. Fast.

“And I know you’ve got plenty to deal with right now,” he breathes. Niall’s gaze softens while Harry continues. “You’ve got exams ten times what I’ve got, and a fiancé in a whole different city who needs you too, and I’ve just… I’ve just been feeling like maybe I’m pulling you away from lots of other important stuff. I don’t wanna be like… takin’ up all your time, ya know?”

Of course, all this is met with a smile. Kind, understanding, but also the sarcastic curve of _you’re an idiot, Harry_ peeking through.

“Harry.” Niall’s looking somewhat jokingly stern, now.

“Niall.”

“If I need ye to bugger off, I’ll tell ye to bugger off, all right?”

He sounds so exceptionally Irish and looks at Harry so fondly that Harry almost forgets that the whole spiel he just fed Niall was a lie. Well, partly. Mostly.

 _Fuck it,_ he thinks. He’s an adult. He can still do boundaries. He can be friends with Niall and have boundaries just the same. They can _talk._ There’s no home in talking. It’ll be fine.

“Duly noted,” he grins. And his heart is already feeling lighter.

“Good. Well, I’ll, eh…” Niall gestures noncommittally, then sticks his hands into his pockets as he begins moving away from the door… “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Wait.”

Niall turns, pauses in his tracks and looks at Harry questioningly.

“You going home for the holiday?” he asks.

Niall grins. He pulls his hands from his pockets and runs them through his already wild blonde hair. It looks like he either just woke up from a nap or just got off a helmet-less motorcycle ride. Either way, it suits him, Harry thinks.

“Yeah,” he nods happily. “Flyin’ up to LA first, ‘course, then Zayn and I head for Mullingar for a Horan Family Christmas. Over 20 of us stayin’ under one roof. Should be good craic.”

Harry whistles in amazement and Niall shrugs. Clearly, he’s done this before.

“How ‘bout you?” Niall asks, leaning against the wall, like he could stand here and talk to Harry for hours.

“Yeah, headin’ home as well. Not 20 people in one house though, thank God,” he adds, and Niall snorts. “Just me, Mum, Robin and Gem. I’ll spend a bit of time with Dad, too. Oh, and Nick’ll make a dramatic appearance at some point.”

“‘Course he will,” Niall says, like he’s known Nick forever. Though he may as well, Harry’s basically told him everything there is to know.

Niall’s starting to shuffle his feet again, and it reminds Harry why he asked Niall to wait in the first place.

“So, we’ll be in the same time zone,” he says.

Niall waits, curiously.

“Sorry I’ve been a bit distant the past few weeks,” Harry repeats, sincerely. “Like I said it was just… didn’t want to be bugging you, ya know? But now that I’ve got your blessing…?”

“Sure,” Niall nods, warmly. “Don’t be a stranger. I’m sure I’ll need to take refuge from our annual Horan Christmas Insanity at some point,” he jokes. “Text whenever. Always glad for a chat.”

“Good.”

“Great.”

There’s an odd silence that Harry feels like he should fill with something. Some urge to tell Niall something that he can’t quite pin down, and he feels a bit silly standing there, poised to speak with no sound coming out.

As per usual, Niall and his wit quickly put Harry at ease.

“Well someone clearly needs some sleep,” Niall jabs, and there’s no use arguing so Harry simply confirms this assessment by knocking his own forehead dramatically against the doorframe. Niall laughs. “G’night, Haz. If I don’t see you before you leave, safe flight.”

“You too,” Harry says, quietly, just before Niall retreats into his apartment for the evening.

~

Every time Harry travels internationally, he thinks this trip will finally be the one in which he masters jet lag. And every single time, he’s so very wrong.

He gets into Heathrow at 4:30 in the afternoon and is positively avalanched by crushing hugs and kisses from Gemma and his mum and stepdad, and he nearly gets choked up right then and there because God, he never realizes just how badly he misses them until he’s back in their loving arms.

He and Gemma stay arm-in-arm all the way to the car, and the whole ride home is an unintelligible mishmash of questions about his life and school and his music, plus random updates about the friends, neighbors and family that he’s missed out on since his last visit — nearly five months ago, now.

When they pull into the driveway, Harry plants an extra kiss on his mum’s cheek before they get out of the car, to thank her for being the one who thought to bring him a winter coat. It’s blistering cold outside, and they traipse through a solid few inches of freshly fallen snow on the short walk to the front door.

The toasty warmth of his childhood home is what finally does him in. That, combined with the lingering smell of that morning’s pot of coffee, a hint of cinnamon characteristic of his mum’s holiday baking, and that familiar sensation of comfort and relief that he always feels when he comes back to this place.

He told himself he’d stick it out until at least eight in the evening. That way, he’d surely beat the jet lag; wake up tomorrow morning fresh and ready to go with the rest of the family. But once he sets foot in his old bedroom, dumps his bags on the floor, and falls into into the same pillows and blankets that kept him warm and cozy all through high school, he’s a goner.

Someone definitely pops into the room at some point… His subconscious catches a stifled giggle, and he feels a quick kiss placed just below his hairline… but he doesn’t have the strength to find out which of his two favorite ladies it is. He thinks he murmurs something resembling a “love you,” but in another moment, he’s fast asleep.

When he wanders into the kitchen at eleven o’clock still in his clothes from the journey, Gemma’s there to greet him with a smirk and two hot ciders.

“Shut up,” he says, before she even has a chance to lecture him yet again on why he is the worst international traveler to ever traverse the Atlantic.

“Didn’t say a thing,” she shrugs, sliding his cider across the counter.

He loves the fact that she stayed up for him and he tells her as much, which earns him a coo and an overly aggressive ruffling of his already wild hair.

One of the hardest things about living so far away from his family is that any time there’s a reunion, the conversation always turns to him. And he gets so occupied trying to catch everyone up on the details that he doesn’t have as much time to ask about _them_ as he’d like. But it’s quiet moments like these, over the hum of the refrigerator and the delightful burn of spiced hard cider, that he relishes in letting Gemma do all the talking.

At least for a good long while. Harry may be jet lagged beyond belief, but Gemma’s just had a regular day and is beginning to stifle yawns as they come up on midnight. He can feel the conversation dwindling to a sleepy close in any case, but when his phone suddenly buzzes in his pocket, Gemma takes the opportunity to rise and take her empty mug to the sink.

“Well, little brother, you’ve been in-country for all of eight hours and you’re already being summoned,” she teases.

Harry scoffs in response but digs his phone from his back pocket nonetheless. He can’t imagine who would be texting him this late.

“Nick?” Gemma wonders, pushing in her chair and propping her arms on the back of it.

“Nah, he never stays up this long...”

Harry’s stomach does a little somersault when he sees who it is. Niall Horan, his phone tells him, name punctuated by a superfluous rocket ship emoji.

He smiles down at the screen but doesn’t open it yet. “Niall,” he says.

“Oh! Hm.”

She backs away from the chair, teeters a bit on her feet, then reapproaches him and Harry knows exactly what she’s about to say.

“Speaking of Niall—”

“Nick told you.”

“Quite so.”

“Goddamnit…”

“Harry…” she says calmly while he huffs a petulant breath, “listen, all I was gonna say is, infatuation sometimes hits you like a ton of bricks and then leaves as quickly as it came. I know you well enough to know you’d never hurt anyone, you’d never do anything stupid, and if the friendship is really important to you, you’ll get over a silly little crush.”

That’s… not the lecture he was expecting. It’s so optimistic and supportive and _correct,_ he reassures himself in his mind, he feels like he could pick her up and spin her around and hug her silly.

“You think?” he asks, knowing how childish he must look at sound.

“I know,” she says. “Hell, I had a massive crush on Tom before he and Chloe met, fell in love, got married. And she’s my best friend in the whole world, Harry. Sisters for life. And of course I love Tom dearly, but not like that anymore. We’re adults. We get over that sort of thing, you know?”

Harry holds his mug of lukewarm cider a little tighter, nods resolutely and says, a little more brightly, “Yeah. Yeah, I do Gem. That’s why we still chat and stuff,” he smiles, gesturing to the phone on the table. “And he still keeps me sane and all that, so you and mum don’t have to worry,” he adds with a playful roll of the eyes.

“Good.”

She leans over the table and plants a kiss smack in the middle of his forehead, making him wrinkle his nose and whine like he would have when he was in primary school.

“Try not to pull an all-nighter, yeah?” she says on her way out of the kitchen. “You’ll be nocturnal for the whole of your winter break.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

She waves cheekily before disappearing into the dark hallway, leaving Harry to his thoughts, his cider, and Niall’s text message.

He decides to move this party of one to the sitting room, where he plops down on the couch and tucks his feet up on the cushions before opening the message.

_So i assume you are tucked away in bed for your healthy 8 hours of sleep that you postponed until 10 pm like a good, experienced expatriate, right?_

Harry snickers and begins tapping out a response, only to be met with another one from Niall.

_Uh oh. Typing bubbles would imply otherwise._

He rolls his eyes and sends his answer.

_Oh hush, you’re clearly not doing any better yourself._

The bubbles are back almost instantaneously, and Harry lets himself slump backward onto the couch for what he’s guessing will be an extended conversation. Which he is totally fine with, especially at this hour when there’s no one else about. He flips on the TV to a holiday movie channel for a bit of background noise just as Niall’s response comes in.

 _I’ll have you know that we literally JUST landed._ _In the car on our way to the House of Horan._ _Zayn says hi :_ _)_

Niall types just like he talks, Harry thinks. Smiles and all.

_Tell him hi back! I hope he’s driving because otherwise put your phone down for the love of God Niall, how dare you put the love of your life in danger like this!_

It suddenly dawns on Harry that their three-week famine really hasn’t changed a thing. Not that he necessarily thought it would, but he’s just especially glad for that, especially when he gets a text that looks exactly like Niall sounds.

 _Hahahahahahahaha. Y_ _ou doubt my multitasking abilities?_ _Don’t make me remind you how many degrees i have ;)_ _kidding lol of course he’s driving ya nutter_

Harry’s inner child is enjoying _Home Alone_ on low volume between texts, still no trace of sleepiness to be found as he texts Niall back.

 _Good good._ _Maybe one day they’ll let spaceship-builders text and drive, but till then you gotta follow the letter of the law just like the rest of us._

He kind of loves the fact that he’s helped Niall be more proud of his smarts and his myriad academic achievements, to the point where they can joke like this without him getting embarrassed. Well, maybe he gets a bit embarrassed, but they’re working on it.

 _Aaaand that’s enough of that hahahaha. O_ _h God. Zayn put on George Michael and is belting and we still have an hour and 30 minutes to go. SEND HELP._

Harry snickers, and tosses back the last of his cider.

_Why, poor bloke can’t carry a tune?_

Harry turns onto his belly and tucks a throw pillow under his chest, watching only his phone now.

 _Oh quite the contrary he’s a fantastic singer, it’s just the dramatics of it all can be absolutely ridiculous… to say nothing of the self-indulgent riffing hahaha._ _Hang on..._

A moment later, there’s a video clip. Harry presses play, and sees, from the vantage point of the passenger seat in a dark vehicle, Zayn jamming out at the steering will like a goofball. It actually does make Harry laugh out loud, right along with Niall, whose laughter can be heard behind the phone. He’s singing “Freedom” at the top of his lungs and sure enough, throwing in some absolutely insane vocal runs that actually impress Harry immensely.

Then Zayn stops suddenly, turns to face the camera and quirks an eyebrow. “Are you recordin’ me?” he asks suspiciously in a thick accent.

Niall just cackles and Zayn shakes his head, turns his eyes back to the road and grins, “Sneaky bastard.” George Michael continues on the radio and Niall responds through a fit of laughter, “It’s for Harry!” before the video stops.

Harry goes all soft for a moment, overcome by a longing to be there with them. Or maybe he just misses having that kind of camaraderie with someone. Because the feeling is something reminiscent of nostalgia, but with a open end, like a question mark. Nostalgia for something that hasn’t happened yet.

But that makes absolutely no sense — clearly the jet lag addling his brain.

He taps back.

_Hahaha. You guys are so weird. Miss you and your craziness. We should all hang out when he comes to visit again._

The last bit sort of comes out of nowhere, but once it’s out there, he’s glad he said it. Maybe that’s what’ll really help, he thinks. Get to know Zayn a bit better. Really make an effort.

_Yeah for sure! Zayn wants to do that too :) And he also apparently wants “my sex and my love” Harry it’s past midnight how does he have the energy to be singing the shit outta these songs pls send backup_

Harry lets his head fall face-first into the pillow because first of all, he _really_ doesn’t need to envision Zayn singing that _particular_ George Michael song to Niall, but second of all, he still does find it funny as hell to hear Niall get all exasperated like this.   

 _OH WOW OK. I_ _’m clearly intruding on a romantic serenade now haha. You’re on your own, lad!_ _Good luck!_

The response comes quick as lightning.

 _Traitor._ _Haha goodnight Harry._  

Harry clicks off his phone and slides it onto the coffee table. He sighs, gets himself settled under his mum’s favorite throw blanket, and watches as Kevin McAllister trips up the bad guys until he lets his eyes close. He doesn’t quite sleep, but he does turn out all the lights, laying peacefully with only his thoughts for company until a hint of light peaks through the frosted windows. 

~

The week of Christmas rolls around all too quickly, and before Harry knows it he’s ensconced in cooking, baking, last-minute shopping, and all the customary visits to his favorite family members and friends.

There’s an odd part of him, though, that keeps feeling as though Niall should be here. Like, Harry feels that if he suddenly walked into the kitchen and saw Niall stirring cookie batter while his mum poured in the chocolate chips, it would be the most unsurprising thing in the world. Which of course makes not one bit of sense, since the family’s never even met him.

After sitting with this strange feeling one day, Harry decides to resurrect Snapchat, of all things, to show Niall what he’s missing. He ends up taking candid videos of Gemma and some of her old school friends trying and failing to string popcorn for the Christmas tree; of his mum and Robin dancing around in the kitchen to Frank Sinatra; and an absolute gem of a video that Harry positively _refuses_ to delete of Nick faceplanting while shoveling their front walk.  

Niall seems to have no qualms about any of this, and responds in turn with some showstoppers of his own. Harry’s favorite by far: a gaggle of Horan cousins pushing a horrified Zayn down a massive snow-covered hill on a toboggan.

Harry does finally beat the jet lag, and actually winds up on a way healthier sleep schedule than before the trip. He’s been dozing off by ten and getting up bright and early around six or seven (or at this time of year, dark and early), and basking in those quiet hours before the sun comes up. And if he goes into Robin’s office, he can play the guitar without anyone hearing.

That’s where he finds himself the morning of December 23 — slouched in a big armchair by his stepdad’s bookshelves, strumming the old acoustic Fender his father bought him in high school, watching the first rays of light peak through the crystal-coated trees.

He’s got his MacBook propped on the corner of Robin’s desk, where the tabs to “Landslide” are illuminated before him.

He’s so caught up in the song, he almost doesn’t notice the soft ping of his email. Curious, he leans forward a bit. His heart gives a warm little jolt when he sees the name on the notification, he sets his guitar down and opens it immediately.

 **From:** Niall Horan <nialljames93@gmail.com>  
**To:** Harry E. Styles <styleshe@berkeley.edu>  
**Date:** 23 December 2018, 6:48 AM  
**Subject:** Happy two days ‘til Christmas!

Harry, 

I hope you’re not too freaked out that I got your email off our school directory haha. The last few days there’s been so much I’ve wanted to tell you, but it’s absurd to put it all in a text. (Feel free to send me your personal if you don’t want to be accidentally sending memes to your profs!)

First, the vids are hysterical. I want to be best friends with your sister. Can we make that happen? She could clearly learn a thing or two about stringing popcorn. It’s a subtle art that I’m proud to say I’ve mastered, but I learned from the best. Granny Gallagher is an absolute pro.

Second, I don’t know what kind of crumble your ma had cooling on the stovetop behind the professional level of ballroom dancing happening in the kitchen, but it looks amazing, and I wonder if she’d be willing to give an Irishman with no baking skills the recipe? My ma’s desserts are fucking incredible, make no mistake, but I’d love to surprise her with something new. They’ve only got me on turkey duty but you know me, always trying to expand my horizons :)

The third thing is that I keep humming that tune you played me a few weeks ago, the one that’s meant to be a duet for guitar and piano. I wondered what ever happened with that? Did you write it, record it, turn it in? I seriously can’t get it out of my head, haha. Realized I never asked how that went.

Not on the list but some other random stuff, haha: Zayn nearly had a heart attack after the sleigh ride from hell that you had the pleasure of witnessing. Greg’s baby boy isn’t so much of a baby anymore which is just mad, and his new favorite game is to steal Uncle Niall’s glasses and run around to any family member who will listen and yell, “Look, I’m Uncle Niall!” and then cackle like it’s the funniest thing in the world. (It is pretty funny though, haha.) By tomorrow evening we’ll have all 20 of our holiday house guests in possession, and it’ll be absolute mayhem, but the good kind, you know? Kind that makes you feel really safe, like. I don’t know what I’m talking about, haha. It’s early. I’m the first one up actually. Well, me and Jess, who’s purring on my chest right now and successfully obstructing my view of the keyboard. (All type-os are her fault!)

Have you ever been to Ireland? I’d love to show you Mullingar one day. My family would like you I bet. For as much as I want to see every corner of the world, I’ll always come back here, I think. Hailee’s doing an externship at Trinity in the summer so she’ll definitely get the grand tour. Maybe you two can visit me together.

Anyway, haha. Sorry for the rambling. Hope all’s going well. From the snapchats, sure looks like you’re happy to be home too :)

Best, 

Niall

\---

 _Niall J. Horan_  

When he gets to the end, Harry pulls the computer into his lap and goes back, rereading the parts that made him laugh and smile. This is... new, he thinks. They've had some long heart-to-hearts in the past couple months to be sure, but this somehow feels so much more personal. The fact that Niall was up at six something in the morning and had the urge to sit down and type out all the things he thought Harry might want to hear. Or rather, lie down, Harry supposes. Though picturing Niall sprawled in bed with a laptop on his belly and a cat curled up on his chest is making Harry feel some kind of way that he doesn't think he's allowed to feel, so he pushes the image away, thinking again about the time, the effort, the thought of it all. And it makes him feel so...  _valued._

He forwards the message to his personal email, logs in, and immediately begins composing. He has no plan for where it's going, but he doesn't think Niall did either, and he knows Niall won't care one way or another. Knows that he'll cherish a response, because that't the kind of person he is. 

 **From:** Harry Styles <harryestyles@icloud.com>  
**To:** Niall Horan <nialljames93@gmail.com>  
**Date:** 23 December 2018, 7:07 AM  
**Subject:** RE: FW:Happy two days ‘til Christmas!

Niall, 

You absolute stalker, you. Kidding, haha. I admire your resourcefulness, but yes, for the sake of propriety, let's use my personal email. 

Gemma and you would get along mad well. She’s snarky and appreciates a quick wit. Random, but this reminds me — she asked me the other day if you’d ever been in an anti-gravity chamber and I told her I didn’t know but I’d ask. Have you? Do they let civilians just do that for fun, granted they’re pursuing space-related studies, or is it like a “grown-ups only” club?

You _would_ be looking at the food in the background of my videos. It’s a fig tart and almond crumble to be exact, and it’s positively scrumptious, but I don’t know the first thing about making one, haha. I’ll ask her today. She writes down literally every recipe she makes and has about 500 recipe boxes to show for it, so I’m sure we can get that to you.

You seriously remember the tune?! I’m impressed, although I prob shouldn’t be. You probably have total recall or some such insanity haha. Hope this doesn’t disappoint you too much, but I actually sort of gave up on it? I mean not entirely, of course. I had to turn in something. But I changed it to a duet for two pianos, and kept it pretty slow and mellow, rather than using the brighter melody — the one you really liked. But I remembered what you said, about never throwing away your scratch work? And I’m sticking to that. I kept everything. I think I might revisit it again in the spring semester… we’ll see. Thanks again, in any case, for listening. Nice to know you liked it enough to remember it.

Honestly your cousins sound like a party and a half, hahaha. Things are a little more mellow around here, but for sure — I’d really like to visit you there one day. Your family sounds lovely. Wild haha, but lovely. Though knowing they raised you, I can’t say that surprises me at all.

Talk soon,

Harry

P.S. Don’t get too comfy with Jess there, or you’ll fall back to sleep!

\---

_Harry Styles_

A warm ray of sunlight is shining through the windows by the time Harry hits send, and he feels more ready to start the day than he has in, well, he can’t remember how long.

He does manage to fish the recipe for the fig tart and almond crumble from his mum’s extensive catalogue of recipe cards, and uses Robin’s office to scan it and email it off to Niall, a little giddy really, that he could actually follow through on that.

Gemma is dragging Harry around the market in search of the perfect wines to pair with Christmas dinner when his phone buzzes with a text from Niall. He thanks Harry in all capital letters for the recipe card, which makes Harry grin. He also takes a moment to inform him...

_I’m so sorry to shatter your sister’s universe, but anti-gravity chambers actually don’t exist! There is something called the ZERO-G Experience, where a 727 does arcs in flight to create a weightless environment for the passengers (so, a simulation), but technically we can’t eliminate gravity. I actually had the opportunity to do it a few years ago as part of this fellowship I was doing, but I took a hard pass hahaha. Claustrophobia n all that ;)_

Harry has to pull Gemma away from the free samples to get her attention, but once he does, she’s positively gutted to learn that there are no magical rooms at NASA where gravity is lifted so astronauts can practice the art of floating. She demands that Harry tell Niall he needs to _promise_ her that he’ll invent it one day.

And he does. Enthusiastically.

That evening, Harry snaps Niall a video clip of the most aggressive game of Heads-Up his family has ever played (Harry has the clear edge on Hey Mr. DJ, but the girls’ team _always_ wins all the pop culture categories and tonight it’s put them in an overwhelming lead).

In response, Niall snaps a candid video of his cousins yelling boisterously at a match on the TV, then pans into the kitchen to show Zayn cuddling Jess at the breakfast bar, and then, finally, pans to the door of the oven, where Harry can see a not-half-bad-looking fig tart being born. Harry definitely replays the snap for his mum, and she definitely beams.

~

Christmas Eve arrives along with a layer of freshly fallen snow, and a sky that, aside from the occasional passing cloud, is bluer than any Harry has ever seen in his hometown in December.

After watching the sun rise from his usual spot, cozy in the armchair of Robin’s office, Harry makes his way to the kitchen, where he finds his mum pouring herself a cup of tea, still in her pajamas, her long hair in a braid, looking not a day older than she did when Harry was just a little thing. She must hear him in the doorway, because without even turning to look, she pulls a second mug from the cabinet and pours him one as well. She brings both to the table and sits down, smiling at him and sliding his mug toward the chair next to her.

He joins her happily and wordlessly, pulling the sleeves of his big jumper over his hands to protect them from the heat of the mug as he picks it up to take a sip.

“I’m so, so proud of you, Harry,” Anne says, after a few moments of comfortable silence.

Harry looks at her, and he must look doubtful, because she continues, “I know things got really hard there, for a while. And as a mum to watch her son’s beautiful heart get broken… it hurt _mine._ But ever since you started this past semester, Harry, it’s like you’ve completely lit back up again.”

She’s smiling now, and Harry can feel himself beaming right back at her. And he’s trying as hard as he can to breathe steadily, and keep the tears at bay.

She reaches across the table and clasps his hand, and Harry squeezes back.

“I’m so proud of you for the way you’ve managed to pick yourself up, dust off, and keep doing what you love. We all love you so much, darling. So, so much, and I couldn’t be prouder.”

Harry knows the moment he tries to speak, the tears will fall, so he just throws himself into her arms and hugs her, just like he did when he was a child. Strong, fast, grateful, and without any indication that he’ll ever let go.

When the tears are dry, and the others awaken, and breakfast is enjoyed and then cleared, Harry retreats to his bedroom and pulls out his laptop. Before things get too hectic with preparations for tomorrow’s holiday, he decides he has one more email to send.

 **From** : Harry Styles  <harryestyles@icloud.com>  
**To** : Niall Horan  <nialljames93@gmail.com>  
**Date** : 24 December 2018, 9:43 AM  
**Subject** : Just a few more hours…

Niall,

Do you feel like as we’re getting older, the years are going by faster? I do. When I was young and heard adults say that, I always thought it was nonsense, but now, I really do feel it. I can’t believe it’s almost another Christmas… feels like we had one just yesterday.

But there’s one big thing that’s different this year, at least for me. And maybe it’s because I just had an unexpectedly tender moment with my mum at eight in the morning in our kitchen, but for one reason or another, I’m feeling sentimental enough to write you this and tell you that that thing is your friendship.

Christmas last year was difficult, in a way. My family was worried about me. I wasn’t doing great emotionally, didn’t keep close friends, wasn’t taking care of myself the best I could. But ever since I met you... things have gotten so much _better_. I truly can’t tell you just how much happier I am now that I’ve found a friend in you. So I guess since the year is coming to an end, I wanted to say thank you for filling me with the infectious optimism and passion for life that you seem to radiate every second of every day. I’m so grateful for your friendship, Niall. And I really hope I can keep saying that for a long time to come.

All the very best to you and Zayn and the family,

Harry

\---

_Harry Styles_

It’s not long after Harry hits send that the day fully kicks into gear, and he nearly forgets about the email altogether. There’s decorating and cooking and of course the traditional visit to his aunt and uncle’s house for the gift exchange among the cousins. There’s kisses and hugs and surprises, hilarious moments Harry knows will become cherished memories.

They don’t get back home and until near eleven, and though they’re all a bit winded, nothing will stop their long-honored tradition of illuminating the Christmas tree and all the little bulbs that grace the door frames and bannisters of the sitting room, building a toasty fire, and gathering right there under the lights to await the stroke of twelve.

Harry’s warm and settled on the sofa, head just tipping down to rest on his stepdad’s shoulder, when the clock strikes midnight. The massive hug that ensues is silly, haphazard, and full of laughter and exclamations of another holiday come, and just as Harry’s finally extricating himself, he feels a buzz in the pocket of his flannels.

Everyone’s still heralding in the holiday so nobody even seems to notice when he pulls out his phone and checks his messages. And what he sees makes the smile on his face even brighter.

_I’m so ridiculously beyond grateful for your friendship too. Happy Christmas, Harry._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm pretty sure this is the longest chapter I've posted to date, which is pretty cool and not going to lie, I'm super proud of this one. I know y'all already know this, but I really do sit down and write this as a leisurely thing for me, when I have the time among my full time job and the many other things that occupy this lil girl's life. So I really can't tell you just how much it means when you keep coming back to read it after the long waits. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. You're all wonderful, and nothing makes me happier than when you comment and I get to hear what you think and write you back. Thank you again, and love you all <3


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